


Invictus

by Terene



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst with a Happy Ending, But it's TAZ so there's definitely some humor, CWs included by chapter, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic, Drama, Established Relationship, Family, Kravitz Backstory, Kravitz and Taako love each other very much, Kravitz is Very Good at his job but also the world's biggest dork, Like the scope of the plot is large but it's seen through an intimate lens, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Plotty fic but romance is at its heart, Post-Canon, Rated M to play it safe for one or two brief scenes, Reaper Squad, Romance, Taako and Kravitz are married, Things may get rough in the middle but I promise I will fix them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 19:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 58,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18079508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terene/pseuds/Terene
Summary: That is not dead which can eternal lie.And with strange aeons even death may die.-H. P. Lovecraft, "The Nameless City"Eight years after the Day of Story and Song, Taako and Kravitz have settled into a comfortable life together. But when a goddess falls ill, will it destroy what happiness they've found and the order of the world along with it?Updates on Mondays!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to Lovecraft for taking his couplet (used in my summary) out of context and flipping its meaning for my own purposes.
> 
> Thank you to William Earnest Henley for the poem after which this story is entitled, which I feel suits not only this story but also the Balance Arc itself so very well.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angus visits. Kravitz takes a hit. Taako burns the cookies.

“Hello, sir! I’m here.”

Taako’s knife paused its skillful rat-tat-tat on the cutting board at the sound of Angus’s voice. At nineteen, the boy’s voice was a good octave lower than it had been the first couple hundred times he’d greeted Taako thus, but it was no less chipper.

Taako smiled, but mentally he amended the statement to _Hello, Taako! I’m home._ Or maybe _Hello, Dad?_ No, too much. Either way, Taako’s mind had run down that particular path dozens of times over the years, but he had yet to do anything about it more official than the occasional protest at that pervasive “sir” business. Angus was so independent, always had been, and Taako didn’t want to assume—

“Sir?” came Angus’s voice again, along with the sound of a bag being plopped on the foyer floor.

Taako shook himself and resumed his chopping. “In the kitchen, Ango.”

“I should have guessed,” Angus said, appearing in the doorway, grinning, with an armful of fluffy gray feline. He was half a head taller than Taako now, a full head if he took off his cap and let his unruly nest of curls spring free. He was almost as tall as Kravitz, and if he had another growth spurt, he’d be taller. When did humans stop growing again? Taako could never keep it straight.

“Mm, smells great, what are you making? Is Mr. Kravitz home?”

“Natch, it’s pesto, and no, he’s working. Put Cat Benatar down and wash up. You can grate the parmesan.”

Angus released the cat in question with a final nuzzle, tolerated by her but only just, and then he moved to do as Taako asked. This was an old ritual by now, and while Angus would never have the natural knack for cooking that Taako did, he was at least competent with the prep work. He was a damn sight better than Kravitz, at least, whom Taako had long since barred from use of his kitchen for committing, in Taako’s words, culinary crimes.

Angus stepped up beside Taako at the counter, and Taako gave him a little shoulder-bump in greeting. Angus had always been a big hugger, but he knew better than to go in for an embrace when Taako was wielding kitchen implements. Still, Taako knew the kid thrived on the physical contact.

“How are things at the school, sir?”

“The kids in my Innovative Magic class are little shits,” Taako said with pride. He tossed a few more leaves onto the pile of basil and garlic on the board—only fresh ingredients in Taako’s kitchen, thank you very much. “Intro to Transmutation is full of hopeless cases who couldn’t transmute their way out of a paper sack, but there’s one or two with potential. Ren’s got the admin stuff on lockdown, as usual.”

“Miss Ren is very good at her job,” Angus said fondly. The two had developed an excellent rapport during Angus’s time at the school. “You’re lucky to have her.”

“Don’t I know it,” Taako agreed wholeheartedly. Not only did Ren handle the boring stuff that he hated, but she also took care of any issues that cropped up that required diplomacy. Taako’s sometimes abrasive nature wasn’t as well suited to smooth out sensitive situations that Ren handled with aplomb. “Had a bit of a PR kerfuffle recently when a couple of the seniors tried to start a rogue necromancy study group and some parents got wind of it. Ren had that shit ironed out before a single ‘Necromantic Panic’ headline could hit the ‘bloids. She—that’s plenty of parm, hon, hand me that bowl there—she had me make a public policy statement, and then she got Lup and Barry to come give a mandatory guest lecture on the perils of death magic or whatever, which seemed a little counterintuitive to me, but whatever works. Barold was doing a damn fine job of making it sound appealing instead, but Lup threw some thinly veiled threats in there at the end that pulled it back around.”

Angus chuckled. “I’d have loved to have heard that.”

“It was pretty choice,” Taako said. The parmesan had joined the basil, garlic, and some pine nuts on the cutting board, and Taako was deftly turning the combo into a finely-chopped, aromatic mixture, knife a blur of motion. “So how’s the detecting biz, kiddo?”

As a young teen, Angus had graduated from Lucas’s school in an impressively short time, and then he’d decided to enroll in Taako’s school to round out his magical education. Despite job offers from both Lucas and Taako, Angus ultimately had decided to take advantage of his youth and to continue to focus on furthering his own studies.

Between semesters at Lucas’s school, Angus had summered with Taako and Kravitz, initially out of convenience of proximity, but quickly they’d all settled into a mostly-unacknowledged, comfortable routine. After an awkward beginning, Kravitz had grown to adore the boy, and Taako, though less obvious in his affections, had arrived at that point long before. When Angus enrolled in Taako’s school, he had moved in with Taako and Kravitz full-time. No point in Angus paying dorm fees when he could just commute with the headmaster, or such was the excuse Taako had presented.

When Angus graduated, unsurprisingly at the top of his class, even Taako with his exacting standards had to admit that the boy’s wizardry skills were surpassed by few, the former IPRE members excluded. Which was why everyone was shocked when Angus had announced that instead of taking some sort of cushy professorial position with the promise of tenure, or going into an arcane research field, or doing literally anything else that put said wizardry skills to use, he was going to return to his roots and open a detective agency in Goldcliff.

Well, okay, his divination specialty did come in handy on occasion, even if Angus preferred to employ more mundane methods, the little nerd. He said it felt like cheating to use magic.

That was what he’d been doing for the last couple years, and even though he had his own place in Goldcliff now, he still came now and then to stay with Taako and Kravitz, sometimes just to visit, or whenever a case took him to Neverwinter.

“It’s good,” Angus said. He handed over the olive oil at a gesture from Taako. “Busy. Mostly cut-and-dry stuff, a few missing persons, some petty theft, the occasional embezzlement. Had an interesting one a couple weeks ago. This tiefling sorcerer thought her wife was cheating on her. Turned out that with the help of Disguise Self and some BS backstories, they were both cheating on each other—with each other.”

 _“Nice.”_ With one final dash of olive oil and a good stir, Taako deemed the mixture finished. He passed the bowl to Angus. “Here, put this away while I clean up, and then tell me what your sweet tooth is craving. We’ve got enough time to bake something before Krav’s due back.”

“Molasses cookies,” Angus said without missing a beat.

“Child’s play,” Taako declared. “But I’ve never been one to complain about something being too easy. You got it, pumpkin.”

 

A half-hour or so later, the first batch of cookies were cooling on the rack, and a second had just gone in. Taako and Angus were working in companionable silence to form the last of the cookies—a tight little two-person assembly line of _scoop, roll, sugar-coat, place on sheet._ A sudden series of thumps and clattering from the foyer startled the duo, followed by a groan of pain in a voice so immediately familiar that Taako’s heart skipped a terrified beat.

“Babe?” Taako called, dropping the cookie scoop and hurrying toward the sound, Angus close at his heels. “Krav, are you okay?”

The sight that greeted Taako as he skidded in sock-clad feet around the corner made it clear that his husband was not, in fact, okay. Kravitz leaned against the bannister, clutching his left bicep, and blood was dripping down his hand from the wound. A drop landed on Angus’s overnight bag, still sitting where he had earlier abandoned it. Kravitz’s scythe lay on the hardwood where he had apparently dropped it instead of dematerializing it as he usually did.

“It’s not serious,” Kravitz quickly assured, always sensitive to Taako’s moods and fears, but the strain in his voice and the wince on his face did little to assuage Taako’s panic.

“What the _fuck_ happened, babe?” Taako asked, struggling to quell the shake of his voice. He was at Kravitz’s side in a flash, and he pulled his hand aside to get a look at the wound. He noted with great relief that Kravitz was likely right about its superficiality. It was a long gash, a diagonal slice from just above Kravitz’s elbow to nearly his shoulder—a bleeder for sure and no doubt painful as hell, but it didn’t look deep enough for muscle damage or anything serious. Probably. His body might be a construct, but a weapon with the right enchantments could still deal lasting “physical” damage that a reaper might not be able to address immediately or without assistance. Kravitz was clearly in no state to fix himself just yet.

Angus slipped a supportive arm around Kravitz and guided him wordlessly to the nearest chair, a pinched look on the boy’s freckled face. He scurried away to grab some first-aid supplies while Taako helped Kravitz peel off his blood-soaked coat and shirt.

“I . . . don’t quite know,” Kravitz said, and he’d never been the best actor, but he wasn’t even attempting to hide his concern and bewilderment. Angus reappeared with the supplies, and Kravitz leaned his head back, brow furrowed, as he gave himself over to Taako’s ministrations.

“Thought this was supposed to be a super-easy, routine bounty?”

“It was. The guy was small-fry. Total loser. Below my pay-grade, really; I only took the job to cover for a coworker. I’d given him the speech, and he’d obviously run out of spell slots, so we were engaging in some hand-to-hand that normally I could have won blindfolded. I went to parry one wildly unskilled blow, when my scythe disappeared. I stumbled from the loss of its weight, which probably kept his sword from landing somewhere more vital. The bastard had just enough sense to seize the opportunity and run. _Damn_ it.” Even injured, Kravitz didn’t take a failure on the job easily.

“Your scythe came back, though,” Taako said with a nod in the weapon’s direction, an attempt at solace, however weak. He didn’t need Kravitz to spell out the broader concern here, that the scythe was an extension not just of Kravitz’s own power but that of his Queen. A lapse, however brief, could mean many things, and none of them were good.

“It did. But Taako, for those few seconds, it wasn’t just my scythe that was gone, it was . . . well, _everything._ My link to her, my ability to shift form, everything. That’s _never_ happened before, not since the Hunger, anyway, and even that wasn’t quite the same.”

“That’s . . . not good,” Taako said in lieu of anything more encouraging, his stab at optimism short-lived.

“No,” Kravitz agreed.

Taako wound a final length of bandage around Kravitz’s arm and secured it in place. “You need to get someone else to look at your arm. If you don’t heal it with magic, you’ll need stitches or something.”

Kravitz shook his head. “Later. I need to report to the Queen first and see if she has any answers. I should have gone straight there, but, uh, apparently my instinct these days is to come home to you. I didn’t really give it thought.”

“Sap,” Taako responded automatically, but he smiled.

“Good for my marriage, bad for my job performance.” He stood, clearly still in pain, but much steadier on his feet than before.

Angus stooped to pick up Kravitz’s scythe and held it out to him. “I’m glad you’re okay, sir,” he said, his voice more subdued than Taako had heard it in a long time. Only with the return of color to his cheeks did Taako notice how pale Angus had been just minutes before.

Kravitz must have noticed too, because he pulled Angus into a tight embrace with his uninjured arm, knocking the boy’s cap to the floor. He pressed a soft kiss into the mess of curls, unnoticed by Angus, perhaps, but not by Taako. “Sorry I frightened you, Angus, both of you. I’ll get this sorted out, I promise.”

Angus released Kravitz after one more lingering squeeze and steadying breath, but before Kravitz could take his scythe back, Taako moved in for an embrace of his own. Taako was no fan of PDA, but Angus hadn’t counted as “public” in a long time, and he hadn’t been the only one frightened. Kravitz only rarely sustained injuries on the job—a combination of his skill and experience as well as typically being more powerful than his opponents by a laughable degree. Only when pressed into his husband’s arms did Taako feel like he could breathe properly again. Kravitz slid his hand across Taako’s cheek and tipped his chin up for a chaste kiss.

And then Kravitz pulled away, and he took his scythe from Angus, and Taako had to cross his arms across his chest to keep from reaching out again. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Kravitz said. “Don’t wait dinner for me, just in case.”

Taako nodded assent. “Tell Lup to give me a call.”

“Will do. Love you. Both of you.”

“Love you too,” Taako and Angus said in chorus, but both had been too shaken to find any amusement in the jinx.

With the _snick_ that always accompanied a portal being sliced in the fabric of the planar barrier, Kravitz was gone. For a moment the two remaining members of the odd little patchwork family unit stood idly in place, as if unsure how to return to normal activity after such an interruption. But suddenly Angus sniffed, and he wrinkled his nose. “Sir, do you smell—”

“Shit, the cookies!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It's been a long time since I've written anything lengthy, but I got inspired with an idea, and I've been tapping away at my keyboard for the last couple weeks. I have enough of a buffer written now that I felt comfortable with going ahead and posting the first chapter. I'll be aiming for weekly updates. I hope you've enjoyed! Please do let me know what you think; comments give me life. <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Raven Queen addresses her inner circle. Barry has an thought. Kravitz gets stitches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who commented, left kudos, and/or subscribed for the lovely reception! I'm excited to be sharing this story with you, and I hope you'll stick with me!
> 
> I plan to be updating once a week on Mondays, but I'll try to inform everyone if anything changes.
> 
> P.S. Comments make me write faster ♥

Kravitz sat very still in his chair in the Raven Queen’s private council room, the white of his knuckles as he gripped the chair-arms the only thing belying his apparent calm.

His goddess presided over the room at its head, of course, the other seats arranged in a loose semicircle around her more ornate one. Her ineffable shadowy form was compressed to something closer to human-sized in this smaller room, or perhaps the towering figure she appeared as when seated upon her throne was rather an amplification of her natural state, meant to inspire maximum fear and awe. It helped not to think about it too hard.

As her highest ranking emissary, Kravitz was seated to her right. A couple other trusted members of her retinue were present, but two chairs were still vacant, awaiting Lup and Barry. Undoubtedly, Lup had taken a moment to check in with Taako, but Kravitz wasn’t about to tell that to the Queen. She probably knew anyway; deities were like that.

Kravitz forced himself to release his death grip on the chair-arms (pun, as always, intended—habit by now and never not funny). He tugged his feathered cloak just a little closer around his shoulders. He was still shirtless underneath, and he felt exposed. To be honest, he wasn’t too keen on his coworkers (technically subordinates, though they didn’t report to him) seeing his bandaged arm, obviously a mortal’s handiwork. His hesitancy might have been a touch of embarrassment, or it might also have been a sort of protective instinct toward the one who had tended his wounds—foolish and pointless both, but tell that to his mind. The injury hadn’t really been his fault, and there was certainly no shame in it; and his marriage was no secret, although it was often the subject of generally good-natured teasing. 

He was just unsettled, and it was throwing everything off-kilter. He felt the beginnings of a headache forming at his temples. His arm throbbed.

The door opened and Lup sauntered in, a burst of color in the otherwise gothic scene. Her cropped hair was currently a shocking shade of pink that clashed painfully with her habitual red variant of the standard reaper cloak, a fact which she undoubtedly found delightful. Barry trailed behind looking sheepish, but that was more or less his natural state.

“Looks like a funeral in here. Who died?” Lup asked as she plopped into her seat. It was not the first time she had made the joke, probably not even the hundredth, and Kravitz took it all back—sometimes the death jokes were not, in fact, funny. Of course he recognized the quip for the tension-breaker it had been intended, but he glared at his sister-in-law all the same.

The Raven Queen pointedly ignored Lup, which was further proof to Kravitz that his goddess was concerned about the situation. She normally humored Lup to a surprising degree, often bantering with her or otherwise egging her on. She had told Kravitz once that she found Lup “diverting.” But today she didn’t riposte with an equally terrible joke, and the difference in her mood was not lost on Lup. A small crease appeared on her brow, and she said no more.

“By now all of you have heard of the interruption in the stream of power that flows from myself to each of you,” the Raven Queen began. Her voice, as always, echoed impossibly in the mind of the listener and conjured the impression of a faint accompaniment of cacophony—the ghosts of avian croaking and rustling feathers and rattling bones. In actuality, she spoke softly now, a clear and rich projection from her unmoving corvine visage—whether mask or face, Kravitz didn’t know and had never asked. “Some of you experienced it yourselves, from minor inconvenience to sustaining injury in the line of duty.” Her head inclined minutely toward Kravitz at that. “I would like first to offer my apologies to those who were affected, as well as my thanks for your continued devoted service. Each of you plays a vital role as arbiter of the natural order, and as such, you are all my emissaries, not my thralls. Though you serve me, our relationship works best as a contract of faith. I dislike being unable to uphold my end of that contract, however brief and beyond my control.

“Unfortunately, I must tell you that I have no answers, not yet. I can only say that I felt what you felt. It was something unlike anything I have experienced before. If I were not a goddess, I would say that I felt briefly ill. Faint, almost, as though there were less of me . . .” She paused, her last sentence spoken in musing bewilderment, as though to herself, illness clearly a foreign concept to her.

With renewed poise, she continued. “I do not wish to spread alarm among my court over an unknown. This may have been an anomaly that never happens again. I have, as yet, no reason to believe that it will. Those of you in this room are my most trusted servants, and I do not wish to keep things from you. But in the interest of not causing undue concern, I ask that you use utmost discretion in discussing this situation outside of this room. Am I understood?”

“Yes, my Queen,” Kravitz intoned, and the other reapers murmured similar assents.

“Thank you. Now, I will consult with my divine colleagues as soon as I may, but I would first like to hear accounts from each of you that was affected. Your experiences may be useful in uncovering the nature of this mystery. If you have heard anything of note from other reapers, you may also share it now. I will not have immediate opportunity to speak with every member of my retinue. If you would begin, Kravitz?”

Kravitz acquiesced, albeit with a degree of reluctance. There was little more to tell than what he had shared with Taako, beyond a few metaphysical technicalities. He decided not to mention the fact that he had gone home to Taako before returning to the Astral Plane. That was his business alone, and the Queen would not begrudge him that modicum of privacy.

Lup and Barry had been unaware when the incident happened, as they both had been doing paperwork. Barry mentioned experiencing a certain absence in the back of his mind, like living with a faint ringing in one’s ears that is only noticed when it suddenly stops. In fact, Barry had only registered the change subconsciously, but after hearing the news, he’d made the connection.

The other reapers had various stories, but their accounts offered little insight into the situation. One had been stepping through a portal at the exact moment of the lapse of power and had momentarily found herself stuck in the void between the planes. Another had tried to shift to skeletal form to intimidate a bounty and found he could not.

Of those not present, a few low-ranked reapers had reported brief difficulties in collecting the souls of the newly dead, and the guards at the Eternal Stockade had been alarmed when the wards they helped maintain faltered. The wards returned before any incidents with the Stockade’s inmates could occur, fortunately.

Kravitz noticed with private chagrin that no one else’s story was quite as . . . humiliating as his own. Of course he would have the worst coincidence of timing of the lot. For being the Grim Reaper, the highest-ranked member of the Raven Queen’s court, he could sure have some bad luck. He’d probably used up at least a hundred years’ worth of good luck when Taako fell for him, he thought wryly, though that was certainly a trade he’d willingly make.

Once the stories had all been told, the Raven Queen thanked them all and then dismissed them with no further ceremony. As Kravitz left the room, she reached out and placed a gentle hand on Kravitz’s shoulder. In private tones, she said, “I’m sorry you were injured, Kravitz. Your wound—has it been tended?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good. Don’t worry about the bounty. It was not your fault he got away, and he isn’t a high profile case. Go after him again once you’ve recovered. Take tomorrow off.” Kravitz opened his mouth to protest, ever the conscientious worker, but she held up a hand to silence him. “No arguments, now. Your husband will want you close at hand to fuss over you.” A hint of fond amusement colored her voice. “I’ll summon you if there are any important developments.”

Kravitz had to admit that a day off with Taako doting on him did sound appealing. He appreciated the Queen’s care and the absolution she was offering him for what still felt to him like a failure. She knew him well. He wanted in turn to offer her support, but what words of comfort can one give a goddess? Instead, he simply bowed and trusted that she understood what remained unsaid.

 

“I said Bar and I were doing paperwork when all this popped off, but we were actually boning down on our lunchbreak,” Lup announced later when the three were alone in Kravitz’s office. She was perched on his desk, one long leg drawn up beneath her, the other dangling.

“TMI, Lup, TMI,” Kravitz said automatically, not batting an eye. He sank gratefully into the cushy chair behind his desk. Across the spacious room (there were perks with Kravitz’s position, after all), Barry made himself at home on the couch.

“You’re less fun than you used to be, bone boy,” Lup accused. “You used to be so easy to rile.”

“Huh, it’s almost like I have more important things on my mind right now than your gross office role play fetish.”

“Wanna know who’s the boss and who’s the secretary?”

Nope, Kravitz wasn’t going to touch that with a ten foot pole. He ignored her.

“Don’t let her fool you, Kravitz,” Barry said. “We were literally doing paperwork.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Kravitz could see Lup mouthing "paperwork" at him with exaggerated air quotes. He continued to ignore her. Barry was probably the one telling the truth. It was better for Kravitz’s sanity if he believed that, anyway.

Slouching deeper into his chair, Kravitz pulled off the band of fabric he’d used to keep his hair out of his face, and he ran his fingers through his locs, shaking them loose. He had a definite headache by now, and the snug band wasn’t helping. He removed his various earrings and ear cuffs while he was at it, and then the rest of his jewelry for good measure, with the exception of his wedding ring, of course. He planned to go straight home after the three conferred, and he was long past caring how he looked in front of Lup and Barry. They’d seen him in pajamas with bed head; they’d seen him in old raggedy clothes looking like more paint was on him than on the walls he and Taako were painting; they’d seen him drenched by a rogue wave while wearing the too-tight swimming trunks Taako had purchased for him when the four of them had gone on a beach vacation. They’d seen him, as much as he’d like to forget it, in the occasional compromising position with Taako, because the word “boundaries” didn’t exist in Lup’s vocabulary, at least not where her twin was concerned.

Kravitz’s weary body language was not lost on Lup. “Okay, let’s see that arm, Ghost Rider,” she demanded—an olive branch. “It’s hurting, and don’t try to tell me it’s not. Why didn’t you ask RQ for a fix-a-roo?”

“You heard her, Lup,” Kravitz said with a shake of his head, but he dutifully unclasped his cloak and held out his arm for her inspection. She immediately began to unwind the bandages, and Barry stood up and came over to look. “She felt _ill._ I shouldn’t have to tell you how unusual and frankly concerning that is. I wasn’t about to ask her to heal a superficial flesh-wound that I’m perfectly capable of dealing with on my own, not when she was feeling _sick_ and was obviously _stressed—”_

“Hey, fair enough, I get it,” Lup placated. “No need to work yourself into a lather. We’ll get you fixed up. Oh, shit, ouch!” she said at the reveal of the gash.

“You need stitches,” Barry surmised.

“That’s what Taako said.”

“Reforming your construct doesn’t fix it?” Lup asked.

“Nope, it’s indelible to reaper power. The guy was a loser, but he had some decent enchantments on his sword. I might be able to use some of my very rusty bardic skill to at least improve it tomorrow, but it’s not in the cards until I’ve rested.”

“There’s always Merle,” Barry offered without conviction.

“Just give me the stitches,” Kravitz said.

“. . . yeah, that’s fair. Let me go get my med kit.”

“Did Taako seem okay when you left?” Lup asked while Barry was gone. “He sounded worried when I spoke to him, but of course he was trying to keep it on the DL.”

“Angus was there,” Kravitz said. “Thankfully. I would have felt a lot worse about leaving if Taako had been alone.”

“Good,” she said. “He loves that kid.”

“We both do.”

Barry returned with his supplies, and he pulled a chair close to Kravitz’s and settled in to work. He lined up the required instruments with methodic professionalism, and then he set about cleaning the wound. The compression of the bandage had stemmed the worst of the bleeding, but there was still a little seepage, and the area needed disinfecting.

“This is gonna hurt,” Barry warned. “Sorry, bud.” Kravitz closed his eyes and tried to think of anything but the pain. Of course, that just led him to dwell on the day’s events, which, in a way, was worse.

Lup had been lost in silent contemplation for several minutes, but now she spoke, probably attempting to distract Kravitz. “You’ve been in the death cop biz much longer than we have. This is really the first time something like this has happened?”

“Yes.”

“It brought the Hunger to mind when we first heard, or at least how you described that sitch.”

“I thought of that too, certainly, but there was something different about this. You didn’t serve the Queen yet then, so you couldn’t know, but the Hunger made it feel like there was a wall between her and me, blocking our connection, cutting off communication. This felt more like the source had dried up. Like for a moment, she didn’t exist.” Kravitz frowned, and not from the pain of his arm. The Raven Queen ceasing to exist didn’t bear thinking about, for a great many reasons.

“Weird,” Lup said, matching his frown.

“Understatement. And really super not good, in case I haven’t mentioned that.”

“Yeah. Fuck. Bar, you got any thoughts?”

“I think,” said Barry slowly, not looking up from the needle he was threading, “that the Queen had the right idea about not panicking yet. She’s gonna talk to the other gods and goddesses, and maybe they’ll have an idea what’s up. Maybe she was just feeling under the weather. It’s gotta happen once in a while, even to deities, right? Maybe a bug spreads around once every couple millennia.” Needle threaded, he reached for Kravitz’s arm again with a sympathetic grimace.

“Okay, but what the hell kind of bug could make a goddess ill?” Kravitz asked through gritted teeth as the needle pierced his flesh.

“This is probably not connected, but remember that one cycle, Lup? The one where there were no gods, and the Material Plane was overrun with ghosts and shit?” As he spoke, he deftly stitched. Fortunately, he was one of those people who could talk and work at the same time.

“I do now, thanks for the fucking reminder,” Lup said.

“Well, remember, there were temples. The gods had existed there once, but something had wiped them out.”

“We don’t know that it was an illness, though.”

“No,” Barry agreed. “But it could have been. The point is, we know the gods aren’t invincible.”

Finished with the stitching, Barry tied off the thread, but Kravitz didn’t even register it. He was staring at Barry in horror. Intellectually, he had known the gods were not invincible, but to hear of a planar system where the gods had been totally annihilated made the knowledge real in a way it never had been before.

“Way to go, dingus, now you’ve really spooked him,” said Lup with a backhanded smack against Barry’s arm.

“Sorry, bud,” Barry said for the second time, and he genuinely looked apologetic. But Kravitz knew him well enough to see the wheels beginning to turn in his head as his scientist’s brain kicked into overdrive.

He wasn’t mad at Barry for that, not exactly, but it still grated a little. He was just tired and struggling to temper his reactions. Logically, he knew that Barry and Lup simply didn’t have the history with the Raven Queen that Kravitz did and could more easily separate their emotions. He nodded at Barry, the closest thing to acceptance of his apology he could muster at the moment.

Silence reigned while Barry wrapped a fresh bandage around Kravitz’s arm. When he was done, Lup held out a shirt and coat to Kravitz that she’d apparently retrieved from the closet while he’d been distracted. He took them and allowed Barry to help him shrug them on. With heavy bleeding no longer a concern, this new bandage was less bulky than the first one, so he was able to fit his arm into the sleeve. It was a bit of a pointless exercise, but he felt slightly better once he was fully clothed again.

“Hey, Kravitz?” Lup said.

“Yeah?”

“Go the fuck home.” In Lup-speak, that meant something along the lines of _go get some rest because I care about you._

“Yeah,” Kravitz said. “Yeah, okay.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako and Angus worry. Kravitz fills them in. Taako tries to be a supportive husband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little on the short side while things are still ramping up, but the chapters from here on out will have a little more substance. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think so far!

With Kravitz still absent, dinner was a somber and mostly silent affair, with forced small-talk the only thing that passed for conversation. Neither Taako nor Angus wanted to feed into the other’s worry by vocalizing his own. Angus picked at his food, his usually voracious teen boy appetite conspicuously gone.

Earlier, Lup had rung Taako’s Stone of Farspeech while he had been scraping burnt cookies off the sheet. Kravitz had relayed Taako’s request, and Lup knew better than to wait to check in with her brother. She had had little to offer other than assurances that she and Barry were fine. She, Barry, Kravitz, and a few others of prominence in the Queen’s retinue had been about to have a meeting with her to discuss the incident. Kravitz had not been the only reaper who had experienced a similar lapse of power. Lup had had to disconnect after only a minute or two on the stone. Although Taako was relieved to hear that his sister and brother-in-law were both well and unharmed, their brief talk had done little to assuage his concern about the situation at large.

Taako twirled his fork on his plate, the pesto-covered pasta twining around the tines and forming an increasingly unmanageable bite. He tried not to think of the potentially devastating repercussions if this incident turned out to be precursor rather than fluke. The image of Kravitz hunched over and dripping blood flashed in his mind, and Taako shook himself. With deliberate motion, he lifted the fork to his mouth but immediately set it back down once he caught sight of the now nearly fist-sized wad of spaghetti.

A ghost of a grin flickered in the corner of Angus’s mouth. “Shut up,” Taako grumbled, but he suddenly felt marginally better.

“I didn’t say anything.” They locked eyes across the table, twin wry smiles forming.

“Eat,” Taako commanded. “We’re doing nobody any good by losing our fucking appetites. Krav’s fine, we’re all fine, and this whole thing is probably nothing. If it’s something, well, we’ve saved the world before and we can damn well save it again. Eat.”

“Yes, sir.”

They managed to finish their servings but made no pretense of going for seconds. After cleaning up the kitchen, they retreated to the living room, ostensibly to do a little work. Taako made an attempt at grading papers, but his mind kept wandering, and he was making very little progress. He kept remembering the worried look on Kravitz’s face. Seeing his husband injured was bad enough, but Kravitz was _always_ confident when it came to his job, his faith in the Raven Queen and the inviolable nature of her creed steadfast.

Angus was reading over his notes on the case that had brought him to Neverwinter, or he was in theory. He had a lapful of Meowrilyn Monroe, and to Taako’s eye, there was significantly more fur-stroking and staring off into space going on than flipping of notepad pages.

“We have three dozen perfectly serviceable, non-burned—sort of charcoal-free, you might say—cookies that need eating,” Taako pointed out. “What do you say we go get those bad boys and park our asses in front of the tube?”

“Sounds good,” Angus agreed, obviously relieved to be offered an out.

 

Half a plate of cookies and two episodes of Fantasy Marie Kondo later, the long-awaited _snick_ finally came. Kravitz stepped into the room, clearly exhausted from the slump of his shoulders. “Hey,” he said, smiling, tired but fond, at the two on the couch.

Taako jumped up to greet him with a hug, needing the physical contact to reassure him of Kravitz’s relative well-being. Taking care not to jostle his left arm, Kravitz divested himself of his outerwear, and then Taako ushered him back to the couch. Angus scooted over to make room, and Kravitz collapsed back into the cushions with a sigh.

“You good, babe?” Taako asked.

Kravitz nodded, head tipped back and eyes closed.

“Your arm?”

“It’s okay for now. Still hurts, but not quite as much as it did. Barry stitched me up.”

“Barold wouldn’t be my first choice, but I suppose he’s competent.” All the IPRE members had had to acquire at least some basic triage skills, especially for those cycles when Merle was absent after a failed parley, but Barry and Lucretia had been the two most inclined toward administering emergency medical care.

Kravitz gave an amused huff at that. “He’s perfectly capable, as you well know. Under the circumstances, I didn’t want to ask the Queen for a reset of my construct. I’ll see what I can do myself tomorrow after I’ve had time to recover some power, but it will heal just fine on its own if that doesn’t work.”

“If you say so.” _Under the circumstances_ sounded ominous, but Taako knew Kravitz would fill them in once he had a moment to collect himself, so Taako didn’t push.

“You’re here for a case, right, Angus?” Kravitz asked instead. “I’m sorry if all the excitement interfered with your work.”

“It’s all right, sir. The person of interest isn’t due to arrive in Neverwinter until tomorrow anyway. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“And I’m glad you’re here,” Kravitz said, pulling himself to sit more upright so he could give the boy a friendly pat on the knee. “Oh, hot damn, are those cookies?” Wordlessly, Taako passed him the plate. Kravitz polished off three in about thirty seconds. He licked his lips free of crumbs, and then he passed a hand over his weary brow, looking like he was gearing up to speak.

Before Kravitz could open his mouth, Taako cut in. His curiosity was strong, but the urge to take care of his injured husband was stronger. “Why don’t you rest a minute while I go make you some tea? I’ve got some herbal shit somewhere that should help with pain. Story time can wait.”

“That sounds lovely,” Kravitz said with a look at Taako like he’d hung the moon or some similarly gooey cliché. Even after nearly a decade together, Taako could still be surprised at times by his own domesticity, but then Kravitz would give him a look like that, and? Worth it.

Taako returned with the promised tea a few minutes later, and Kravitz received it gratefully. He took a sip of the hot liquid, and then he cradled the mug to himself with both hands.

“Warm those hands up,” Taako said, a gentle tease. “They’re colder than usual.”

“Must be the blood loss.”

“That makes no sense, sir,” Angus piped up, never able to resist pursuing facts. “Your blood doesn’t warm you up in the first place.”

“Hey, I don’t make the rules.” A hint of amusement tugged at Kravitz’s lips, which Taako was glad to note.

Clearly unsatisfied with that answer, Angus opened his mouth to respond, but then he shut it again and refrained from belaboring the subject. Taako didn’t doubt that Angus would grill Kravitz further about his physiology at a more appropriate time. It wouldn’t be the first such conversation the two had had.

Kravitz took another relishing sip of his tea, and then he inhaled deeply. “Okay, I know you two are wanting the scoop,” he said. “Unfortunately, I don’t have answers, not yet. Lup told you that others were affected, yes?” Taako nodded. “As far as I can tell, all reapers experienced a lapse in power, although not everyone was doing something that drew on their power, so not everyone noticed. Lup and Barry didn’t realize at the time, because they were . . .” he trailed off for a moment, then continued, oddly firm, “They were doing paperwork.”

Taako quirked an eyebrow. Kravitz was always after those two, or more specifically Lup, not to shirk on the pencil-pushing side of the job, so Taako wasn’t sure why Kravitz was scowling. But it probably wasn’t important. “Okay, so, super weird, like hella weird for sure, but at least you know it wasn’t just you?” Taako reasoned. “So like, no need to worry that you’ve just passed the ol’ expiration date and can’t get it up anymore.”

Angus coughed, probably a reminder that he was, in fact, still there and would very much appreciate the conversation not getting too blue, please and thank you.

“Your analogies are, as always, a delight,” Kravitz said dryly. “And frankly, I would greatly prefer it to have just been me. To continue your dubiously tasteful metaphor, I’d just take some Reaper Viagra in that case and call it a day.”

“That’s a thing?” Angus asked, curiosity yet again triumphing over propriety.

“Of course not,” Kravitz said. “The point is, it would be easier to deal with if it was just me. But this, well, I don’t—” He cut himself off with a sharp exhale before his words could run amok without further thought behind them.

There was that worried look again, and Taako didn’t like it one bit. Angus caught his gaze and raised his eyebrows, questioning, and Taako gave a tiny shake of his head. He wasn’t naturally a patient person, but for his family, he’d put in the effort. He forced himself to tamp down his own desire for the full picture and let Kravitz tell it at his own pace. He placed a hand on Kravitz’s thigh and squeezed softly.

Kravitz brushed fingers across Taako’s hand, acknowledging the support, and then he lifted his mug to his lips and drank for a minute in silence.

“Look,” he began again once he set down his now empty mug. “This really doesn’t need to get out, and I probably shouldn’t be telling any mortals, but she’s no idiot, and she didn’t tell me not to. The Raven Queen got sick today, or something like it. It didn’t last long, but that was what caused the power outage.”

“What the hell could make a goddess sick?” Angus asked.

“Exactly my question. Lup and Barry and I talked about it for a while after the meeting, and Barry . . . no, that’s not important right now.”

Taako frowned, wondering what exactly Barry had said. If Kravitz wasn’t forthcoming, Taako would give his tactless brother-in-law the shakedown later. He was due for some smacking around anyway. Gotta maintain the ol’ pecking order. “Okay, so, Bird Mom’s got the bird flu, I can see why you’re worried. Just to clarify, this is unprecedented?”

“Unprecedented, and unsettling,” Kravitz agreed. With a sigh, he slid down the cushions into a deep slouch. “Look, I don’t want you two to worry. She herself said that whatever it was, it probably won’t happen again, and she’s going to talk to the other deities just in case. I’m sure everything is going to be fine.”

Kravitz—who was really, sincerely not a good actor, Taako couldn’t stress this enough—had never sounded less convincing.

But what Taako _was_ convinced of was that his husband had reached his limit for discussing and thinking about the situation for the present. He needed to get some rest before he crumpled under the stress that Taako could practically see sitting like a weight on his shoulders, piling higher by the minute. And he had been injured, after all.

“All right, I’m sticking the proverbial fork in us,” Taako announced, abruptly standing. “We can talk more tomorrow. Angus, obviously you can stay up if you’d like, but Krav is under strict orders to go to bed.”

“I’m not likely to protest,” said Kravitz, sounding relieved.

“Good boy,” Taako said, and he reached a hand out to help leverage Kravitz off the couch where he had become ensconced.

“Good night, Angus,” Kravitz said. He offered the boy a smile that was trying, and failing, to be reassuring. Taako gave him an A for effort but about a D-minus for execution. “Try not to worry,” Kravitz repeated his earlier sentiment. “I hope you can sleep well so you’ll be fresh on the case tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Angus said, his attempt to reassure earning him a much more solid B-plus. “Good night, sir. Sirs.”

“Night, pumpkin,” Taako said, and he led Kravitz by their still-joined hands from the room.

 

Nighttime routine completed, Taako padded across their bedroom in his footie pajamas. The late autumn had turned abruptly cold, and he was married to an ice cube, so sex appeal could take a hike. Canoodling was not on the agenda for the night, anyway.

Kravitz was already asleep, or nearly. He’d washed up and changed into sleep pants in record time, had given Taako a kiss on the cheek since Taako’s mouth was otherwise engaged with a toothbrush, and had shuffled off to bed. Now, he lay facing the edge of the bed to avoid lying on his bandaged arm, so big spoon duties fell to Taako tonight. Taako could dig it, even if it was their less common sleeping configuration.

He crawled under the covers and wriggled into position, slipping an arm around his husband’s bare waist. He stifled a squeak as his hand came to rest against Kravitz’s frigid abs—he hadn’t been kidding earlier about Kravitz feeling colder than usual. Taako was accustomed to cold skin by now, though, and he really didn’t mind. It was even kind of nice in the summer months. But it had taken getting used to, had necessitated Taako training himself to focus on the rise and fall of Kravitz’s chest and the soft sounds of breathing when they had first begun sharing a bed, so Taako wouldn’t feel like he was sleeping next to a corpse. Fortunately, Kravitz would absorb heat from Taako after spending enough time under the same blanket, and by morning, he’d be nearly as warm as the living.

Kravitz stirred, roused from his doze by the movement.

“Sorry, babe,” Taako said.

“It’s okay,” Kravitz slurred. A moment passed, and then with more effort to enunciate, he said, “Forgot to tell you the Queen told me to take the day tomorrow.”

“That’s good.” It was a relief to hear, in fact, even if Taako still had classes to teach and couldn’t spend the day lounging at home with him. “Now go back to sleep. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Kravitz was silent long enough that Taako thought he had slipped back into slumber, but then suddenly he whispered, “She was frightened, Taako. I’ve never known her to be afraid. She tried not to show it, but I knew.”

That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? That was the real source of Kravitz’s distress—not the injury, not even the chance that his power could fail him again, but the idea that something could happen to his beloved Raven Queen. Their relationship could be defined in many ways: deity and acolyte, boss and employee, mistress and servant, but there was something of the familial there too, even if Kravitz would never acknowledge it aloud. For centuries, the Raven Queen had been the center of Kravitz’s world, the nearest thing to family he had. And maybe the gods shouldn’t play favorites, but Kravitz was undeniably hers.

“I’m sorry, Krav. I, um, I know what she means to you.” Taako wished he had better words to offer, but words of comfort had never been his forte.

A heavy pause followed, and Taako was sure Kravitz was about to say something more. But in the end, all he said was, “Yeah.”

“I know you’ve been hearing it all day, and it won’t just sort of magically make the anxiety go poof, but it was probably a fluke. But if not, we’ll fix what needs fixing. In case you didn’t know, I’m kind of the most powerful wizard in the multiverse, and you’re the fucking Grim Reaper. We’re like the power couple to end all power couples.”

That earned Taako a chuckle at least, even if it was a small one. “Hell yeah we are,” Kravitz said. “Thanks, love. Sorry to be gloomy.”

“Fuck that. You don’t have to, like, filter with me and shit. There’s a ring on my finger that says that’s what I’m here for.”

Kravitz caught hold of Taako’s hand and squeezed. “I love you so much.”

“I know, you big goober. Love you too. Night.”

“Good night, Taako.”

Before Taako drifted off, he spared a moment to contemplate his schedule, and then he made a decision. He carefully rolled over, and he grabbed his stone from the nightstand. He jotted off a quick note to Ren. His students would be okay without him for one day.

Turning back around, he nestled himself against Kravitz’s back again, his nose brushing those gorgeous twists of dark hair he loved so much. He breathed in the scent that was intrinsically Kravitz and succumbed to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako is amorous. Kravitz dabbles in bard spells. Lup brings bad news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I'm posting a day early because I'm leaving town tomorrow for a couple days, and I didn't want to run out of time to post in the morning.
> 
> CW: mild sexual content (mostly banter/foreplay, but the scene cuts before anything explicit happens)

Kravitz awoke slowly, groggier than usual, but at least he felt rested. His arm didn’t pain him as much; what had been a pulsing throb the day before had diminished to a dull ache. Taako had curled in on himself during the night, and his fleece-covered knee was currently jabbing Kravitz in the small of his back. By the sound of Taako’s breathing, he was still asleep.

Kravitz had needed sleep the night before to a degree to which he wasn’t accustomed, the rejuvenating powers of it necessary for his well-being even if not strictly biologically imperative. The last few years had spoiled him, probably. He had become synced with the routines of life in the Material Plane in a way he hadn’t been since he himself was alive.

Third times were charms, and third chances, revelations.

Kravitz had had three chances at life now, or something like it, and that was two more than most, present company excluded. He owed his Queen everything for that, and it was true that he cared for her very deeply.

But it wasn’t for her alone that he was afraid. Despite those extra chances he had been afforded, perhaps _because_ of them, he was afraid for himself too. He feared losing what he had passed through both life and death to win—the home he’d created, bursting with color and joy and family and love. He feared the hole, still so newly hewn, he’d leave behind if something happened to him. He feared oblivion.

And oblivion was what awaited him if anything happened to the Raven Queen, for without her, he would cease to be. His soul—if even that would remain after so many years bound up with the Queen’s own existence—would be set adrift with no one left to shepherd it. The other gods might make provisions for the living, but one such as him was unlikely to get a fourth chance.

He hadn’t told Taako the full extent of his concern last night. He had come close, in that hazy, open state before sleep took him, when his husband had slipped into bed and molded the long, lean line of himself against Kravitz’s back. But he couldn’t do it, couldn’t frighten Taako in that way, at least not while there was a possibility that Kravitz’s fear was for nothing.

But an ominous cloud had been darkening Kravitz’s heart since the incident. He was no clairvoyant, and he wasn’t in the business of omens; he tended instead to be the doom that followed them, at least for those who disrupted the natural order.

Nonetheless, he couldn’t shake the feeling that yesterday had been an evil portent. A storm was brewing, a storm that could bring about his end and the end of all he championed.

He would do all he could to hinder it if it came.

But today he would try to set aside his worry. Today was for relaxation and healing and family.

A needle-bright ray of sunlight stabbed through the gap between the shade and the window, at just the right angle to assault Kravitz’s sleep-weak eyes. He squinted and scowled at the effrontery.

But that meant the sun was higher in the sky than at their usual waking hour. A glance at the clock confirmed his dawning suspicion.

“Taako,” he said, sitting up and nudging the still-sleeping elf. A mess of white-blond hair, more out of its braid than in, partially obscured Taako’s face where it was buried in the pillow. “Taako, babe, get up, you’re late for work.”

Taako bolted upright, eyes wide. “Shit,” he said. He threw back the covers and scrambled to his footie-pajama-clad feet, muttering a stream of profanities. But suddenly he froze.

“What the fuck am I doing?” he asked the room at large. “I took the day off too. Fucking hell, now I’m cold.”

Kravitz couldn’t help it; he started laughing. “Sorry, babe. You should have told me. Get back in here, then.” He held up the blankets in invitation.

“Hell yeah,” Taako said. “I’m not going to pass on morning cuddles on the rare day we both have off.”

Taako climbed back under the covers, and Kravitz scooted back down to lie in a supine position. He lifted his bandaged arm so Taako could snuggle in beside him, and he pulled him close.

“Hi,” Taako said.

“Hi,” said Kravitz.

“How’s the arm?”

“Better.”

“Good,” Taako said.

They lay like that for a while, reveling in the opportunity to just laze in bed for once. Taako left early for work most mornings, or what passed for early with Taako—as founder and headmaster, and famous to boot, he had some autonomy in setting his own schedule. Kravitz’s own schedule was irregular enough that their days off coincided all too infrequently.

With Taako’s sleep-warm body nestled against his chest, Kravitz had nearly drifted off again, when abruptly Taako said, “Wanna have some of that sweet sweet morning sex?”

“You’re terrible,” Kravitz said, “but, admittedly, yes.”

“You know you want a piece of this pajama-covered ass. I wore ‘em just for you; I know how they drive you wild.”

“I do like a man in a onesie,” Kravitz said. He was kidding, mostly.

Taako just grinned smugly, and then he threw a leg over Kravitz and straddled him, his patience for preliminary banter expended. He went in for a kiss that started soft and slow but quickly turned to something pyrotechnic. He was wasting no time, then. Kravitz couldn’t complain. They hadn’t had a morning like this in too long.

A few minutes followed of increasingly ardent (and sloppy) kissing in which Kravitz tried, and failed, to find any breach in the fleece sheath through which he might worm his hands. He now had a sneaking suspicion that Taako was lingering on the kissing just to frustrate him thoroughly. Damn him and those ridiculous pajamas.

Suddenly, Taako sat back. “I do have one condition, and that’s that I do the work and you just lie back and enjoy. You’re convalescing.”

“I am not convalescing. I have a minor injury that’s already on the mend.”

“You’re passing up me riding you?”

“I objected to your word choice, not your condition.”

“Fair enough,” Taako smirked.

“You know,” said Kravitz, “the one problem with you wearing those pajamas is that I have to peel you like a banana to find any skin.”

“You could always cronch down on this delicious peel.”

Kravitz gave Taako a look containing as much disdain as he could muster, which, considering his pupils were probably lust-blown, was undoubtedly less than he would prefer. “Disgusting,” he said, “and completely untenable. That didn’t even make sense. Remind me why I’m into you?”

“Because I do this,” Taako said, and as he leaned in for another deep kiss, his hand found the zipper that had eluded Kravitz, and he tugged it down.

 

Later, Taako and Kravitz emerged from their bedroom and wandered downstairs. Angus had left to work on his case long before they’d even awoken, but he’d written a note to say that he would be back later that evening and to contact him if there was any news. Taako set about making them brunch, and Kravitz (who knew his place, and that was out of the kitchen) retreated to the living room. He wanted to see about applying a little healing magic to his arm.

Kravitz had some small skill as a bard, music having been his passion in life and his hobby in undeath, but while alive he had been more inclined to use his considerable musical talent for the sake of art rather than battle or healing. As a reaper, he almost never had cause to use bardic abilities, so he had done little to develop them further. But he could manage a few basic healing spells, bowed on a violin or plucked on a harp. He preferred the piano or the cello when just playing, but bardic spells were distinctly less useful when played on instruments that were not easily portable, and he found that the techniques didn’t transfer over very well.

For his current purposes, he selected a petite lap harp that sat among a growing collection of various instruments. Having a home on the Material Plane once more had prompted a renewed interest in accruing a wide selection of instruments. Taako was in the habit of buying them for him whenever one caught Kravitz’s eye. Kravitz never asked for them, but Taako apparently regarded him as a trophy husband and liked to spoil him with gifts—one of the perks of being rich and famous, or so Taako said. Kravitz let him, since it seemed to make him happy.

Kravitz plucked out a couple low-level healing spells, drawing on magic that was more elusive than he would like. It was enough to advance the healing of his arm to a point he was satisfied with, so he opted not to expend any more energy on the endeavor. The stitches should probably stay in for at least another day or two, but additional bleeding or infection was no longer a concern, and the pain of the injury was all but nonexistent.

He replaced the harp just as Taako hollered, “Grub’s up, come and fucking get it!” What a way with words the man Kravitz loved had. But he had a way with food, which Kravitz figured was more than a fair trade-off.

Before they sat down, Taako wrapped a fresh bandage around Kravitz’s arm, since it was a difficult thing to do one-handed. Even though it was no longer needed otherwise, the bandage would keep the stitches safe from friction. Taako narrowed his eyes at the not-entirely-healed wound as he worked, looking like he wanted to protest that it hadn’t been fully mended, but he refrained from saying anything.

They ate in comfortable silence, the need for small-talk between them a thing of the distant past. Their meals together were often like that, unless something particularly interesting had happened during one of their respective workdays. They might catch each other’s eyes across the table and smile, or they might play a little footsie if they were feeling frisky; or they might not even spare each other a glance, each engrossed in a book or a magazine or something. But it never felt lonely, and Kravitz loved that about their relationship more than he could express. He had known enough loneliness in his existence.

They were just washing up when, with no warning, a voice echoed from the front hall.

“Koko, Kravitz, you guys around?”

They both jumped at the sound, and there was a certain solidarity in being startled equally. But dread instantly washed over Kravitz. For one, with him having the day off, Lup was unlikely to have been able to skip out early, so she was probably still on the clock. For two, she rarely pulled out the childhood nickname for Taako unless she was being either particularly affectionate or extra sensitive to his feelings, like if she had bad news to tell. Something else had happened.

“Jesus Christ, Lup, fucking _knock,”_ Taako yelled by way of answer. “I’ve told you a thousand times.”

She followed the sound of his voice, and then Lup stepped into view. One glance at her face, and Kravitz knew his suspicions had been correct.

Taako saw it too, of course. “Lulu?” he questioned, copying her nickname use—subconscious twin attunement, no doubt.

“It happened again,” she said, never one to equivocate. “For longer this time.”

Kravitz would say his blood ran cold, but it never ran any other way. Distantly, he heard Taako swear, but Kravitz barely registered it, still reeling from the news. “How long?” he demanded.

“Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.”

That was a _lot_ longer than the first time. The situation had escalated exponentially, and it would be so easy to panic, but Kravitz couldn’t afford that now. He had a duty to perform. “When did it happen?”

“A little over an hour ago.” Lup had the good grace to look guilty at that.

“Over an _hour?”_ Kravitz repeated, not yelling exactly, but his volume had admittedly risen. Fear was all too easily converting into anger. “Why the _fuck_ am I just now finding out?”

“Whoa there, cowboy, calm your tits, and shut up and _listen.”_

“Lup, I think you forget that I’m your superior,” Kravitz said through gritted teeth. He wasn’t actually angry with her, if he was being honest with himself. It was typical Lup behavior, and he was used to it by now, but his general anger and frustration needed an outlet. It was only the way she spoke, anyway, or it might have been a problem. But just because she sassed him regularly didn’t mean that she couldn’t follow orders. Lup actually took direction very well; she would never have been a member of the Starblaster crew otherwise, nor would the Queen have let their arrangement continue, however much she favored Kravitz.

Lup waved a hand in dismissal. “Yeah, but you’re also my brother-in-law, and I’ve seen your scrawny ass naked. I can get away with it, and right now I really need you to settle down and listen.”

“His ass isn’t _scrawny,”_ muttered Taako in protest, which Kravitz appreciated even if the defense was misaimed.

“Whatever, Lup,” Kravitz sighed. “There’s no point in wasting time arguing. Tell me what happened.”

“How about we all sit down,” Taako cut in before Lup could say anything further. It was more command than suggestion, and Kravitz recognized it for what it was: Taako was familiar enough with the way Kravitz reacted to stress to know that he would start pacing at any moment if they remained standing.

Once they were seated around the table, Lup began. “Barry and I had just finished up a job in the field—remember that dude we’d been keeping an eye on who was trying to stage a coup, claiming he’d have a zombie militia behind him?”

Kravitz nodded absently. He knew the idiot she meant.

“Well, homie actually pulled off a resurrection, so we picked him up. We’d just finished, um, getting rid of all his death magic shit, and we tried to portal out of there, but no scythes, no nothing. We just had to wait it out.” By ‘getting rid,’ Kravitz knew Lup meant ‘picking over the texts to add to Barry’s collection and then destroying the rest,’ but that was nothing new. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice the lack of connection, actually,” Lup said.

“I was otherwise occupied,” Kravitz said, monotone.

From the way Lup cut her eyes at him, Kravitz knew she had no doubts as to the exact nature of said occupation. Wisely, she didn’t comment. She could hardly give him crap about enjoying his marriage bed in his own home on his day off, especially not after her claims of a dalliance at the office the day before.

“That still doesn’t explain the delay in me being informed,” Kravitz said to pull the conversation back on track. He clenched and unclenched his fist, longing to summon his scythe. At least he wasn’t wearing a hole in the hardwood and thereby getting himself further worked up. He glanced over at Taako in gratitude, but Taako had his eyes focused on Lup, a worried look on his face.

“We had to report in first, of course, and then we were doing damage control, Kravitz,” Lup explained. “There were a couple other minor injuries this time and at least one fugitive who realized something was wrong before he scurried away like a rat in a sewer. A small skirmish broke out at the Stockade, too. It was handled right away, but now there’s unrest. Barry is still taking reports, but RQ said I should come and tell you what’s up. She’s gone to speak with the other deities again.”

“Okay,” Kravitz said, trying to process. The situation was no worse than he had expected when Lup had told him how long it had lasted, but it was no better either. “Okay. Thanks for coming to tell me. Sorry, Taako, but I’m going in.” He stood up and held out his hand, calling upon his scythe to materialize.

“It’s cool, babe, I get it,” Taako said breezily, but there was a faint shake to his voice that would be undetectable to someone who didn’t know him very well.

“Wait,” Lup said before Kravitz could open a portal. “The Queen said to tell you that everything is under control for the moment and that you don’t have to come in yet—”

Kravitz looked at her like she’d lost her mind, and he opened his mouth to protest.

Lup held up a hand before he could get a word out. “—but she said she knew you’d say fuck that and come anyway. She won’t be back yet, though. She said to give her an hour to confer with the god squad, and then you could come find her. That was probably around twenty minutes ago now.”

Kravitz knew he couldn’t possibly just sit around waiting for forty minutes. “I’m going in now anyway. I can check on the Stockade or receive reports or something. Taako, will you be all right alone?”

“I’m staying,” Lup said.

“Not necessary, Lulu,” Taako said. “Taako’s a big boy.”

“Maybe not necessary, but also not the point. There’s nothing I can do right now that’s not already being handled. Kravitz knows where to find me if he needs me.”

Relieved that Taako would have his sister with him to keep him from spiraling into worry, Kravitz didn’t object to her decision not to return. “Thanks, Lup,” he said. There was one thing in which they were always united, and that was to look out for Taako’s well-being.

“Babe,” Taako said with an attempt at a grin, “I know you’re in a hurry, but since the Queen won’t be there yet anyway, maybe you should think about wearing something else?”

Kravitz looked down at his sloppy but comfortable clothing, the uniform of a lazy day spent at home. “Fair point,” he conceded. He kissed Taako goodbye and dashed off to change and then head to the Astral Plane.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako stresses. Lup is a good sister. Lucretia wants to help.

Taako stared in the direction where Kravitz had exited the room for long moments after he was gone. He had put on a brave face, but the fact was that he felt numb. He was worried, certainly, but he was somehow distanced from it—a protective instinct of his own mind that had kicked in as soon as the situation escalated. An odd sort of guilt welled in his chest, like he was somehow failing his relationship by not feeling fear with the immediacy and clarity the crisis demanded.

Finally, Lup laid a tentative hand on his. “Koko? You okay?” she asked gently.

Taako nodded, but he knew it was a lie. If he could just feel _something,_ he thought it would be better. He was probably experiencing something akin to shock.

But Lup knew him better than he knew himself, always had. She scooted her chair as close to his as she could, chair-legs screeching on the hardwood, and she pulled him into a comforting embrace.

“It’s okay to be scared, ‘Ko,” she said. “He’s your husband, it’s natural.”

Taako had never doubted the deep connection between himself and his twin, but moments like this reminded him of it anew, and it was always a thing of wonder—the one lucky thing with which he had been born, of which he had always been certain. It had been taken from him once, and Taako would kill before he let that happen again.

Like his mind and body had been awaiting permission, Lup’s words released him from his foggy state, and his face crumpled as tears welled in his eyes. With anyone else (Kravitz excluded, nowadays), Taako would have been embarrassed, would have done everything he could to continue to hide his feelings. But Lup was his heart, and she’d always been his safe haven. He buried his face in her shoulder and rode out the breakdown.

“He’s going to be okay,” she murmured, soothing, as she stroked his hair. “We’ve got this, we’ll fix this. He’ll be all right.”

She didn’t know that; she couldn’t possibly know that, but Taako let himself be soothed. It was better than considering the alternative, which had been looming like a shadow in the back of his mind since the day before, but he’d been doing his utmost to ignore it. If he never acknowledged it, it could never happen.

At last he pried his face away from the safety of Lup’s shoulder, and he passed his sleeve across his blotchy face with a sniff. “Should have put my glamour up,” he mumbled, but Lup said nothing in response. They’d had that argument too many times in the past, and she knew he knew her stance. It had taken a lot of time for him to be comfortable without it around Kravitz, despite the countless times Kravitz had reassured him that it didn’t matter to him, but that was now mostly an insecurity of the past. With Lup, Taako was still bothered sometimes that they looked less alike these days.

“I just feel so helpless, you know?” Taako said, winding up to frustration and anger. “I can’t just sit around on my ass like a goddamn maiden in a tower, waiting for Grim Reaper Charming to come and give me the goss. What good is it to be a motherfucking badass wizard if I can’t do anything useful? I’m so fucking over facing threats that I can’t fucking fight outright. I had a hundred fucking years too many of that shit.”

Lup listened silently to his tirade, knowing he needed to vent.

“What the hell horseshit did Barold say to Krav yesterday, anyway? Krav started to say, but he stopped himself, and I could tell whatever it was had freaked his bean. I have a hunch, and if I’m right, you’d better hide your man’s ass because I’m going to kick it.”

“Already done,” Lup said. “The kicking, I mean. I love Barry, but I’ll be the first to say he has less tact than a bugbear on a bender.”

“That’s racist,” said Taako automatically.

“You’re right,” Lup conceded, penitent even though Taako had been mostly kidding. If her brash and open nature made her prone to blunders, it also made her quick to admit to mistakes, something with which Taako had always struggled. She was goodhearted at her core, and virtues like kindness and forgiveness came easily for her in a way they never had for Taako. Without her as his conscience, he didn’t know what path he would have taken in those dark years of his youth.

“So, the godless cycle?” Taako asked, just to clarify. As abruptly as his angry outburst had begun, so too did it end, and he was left with only a bone-deep exhaustion.

“That’s the one.”

“Damn Barry and his stupid logical nerd brain,” Taako said, but the vitriol of before was absent. Barry was his family too, after all. 

“Again, I won’t defend his poor timing,” said Lup, but then she gently added, “but it could be relevant.”

“You think I don’t know that? Fuck, that cycle was a shit-show.” Without the gods, the planar system in question had fallen apart. Civilization had died out before the crew’s arrival; as near as they could tell, famine, pestilence, and general chaos had driven the Material Plane to ruin. The laws of nature had been off-kilter, with no gods left to right them when some cataclysm disrupted their course. And the worst of it had been the homeless, maddened souls of the system’s once vibrant population, left to float, apparition-like, in a plane where they did not belong. With no Raven Queen, there were no reapers, and with no reapers, there were no beings left to shepherd the souls to rest.

And there it came, the thing Taako had been doing his best to banish from his mind before he could actually think the thought and make it a real possibility. It crashed over him, and he felt the weight of it would drown him. “I’m not stupid, Lup. I know that if something happens to her, he’s gone forever.”

Lup gave him such a tenderly sympathetic look, and it was more than he could take. He looked away and tried to swallow his heart back down to his chest where it belonged.

“I admit I’d kind of hoped that hadn’t occurred to you,” she said.

“Well, it has,” he said. “What good would it do me if it hadn’t? At least this way I can try to do something about it, and if that doesn’t work, then at least . . .” _At least I’d be prepared,_ he finished mentally, but he couldn’t say the words aloud. Instead, he figured he ought to rip the rest of the band-aid off while he was at it and address the other half of the equation. “What would happen to you and Barry?”

“I don’t know,” Lup said honestly. “I think—I think we would survive, but we’d lose our reaper powers for sure, and we might become volatile. Technically, we’re still liches, just with bonus abilities. We were already undead apart from her; she simply grounded our souls in her power to circumvent any chance of destabilization.”

Taako nodded, one knot in his chest loosening just a little. It was something, anyway—not a guarantee, but at least a chance at something other than the worst case scenario. But it offered no hope for Kravitz in the event of the Raven Queen’s demise.

“I can’t lose him, Lup,” he said.

“I know.”

“I won’t lose him.”

“I know.”

“So what now? We need a goddamn plan. Something to head this thing off at the pass before it turns into anything bigger.” _Before it’s too late._

“Maybe we call the crew together. More heads, more ideas.”

“Maybe,” Taako said, noncommittal. “Listen, the only data we have of anything destroying gods is from that cycle, right? We don’t know if there’s a connection, but we don’t have any other leads. Does Barry have the records of the analyses he did on the planar atmospheres?”

“I don’t think so,” said Lup. “Cap’nport might, if they’re still on the Starblaster. Otherwise, Lucretia probably has them in the Bureau’s archive.”

“Great, fuckin’ dandy,” Taako grumbled. “Let’s hope Cap’nport has ‘em, then. If not, who do we know that can get us in to run a retrieval mish? Bet Carey would help if Magnus asked her.”

Lup stared Taako down, exasperated. Taako refused to cave and pretended obliviousness. Finally, Lup gave in with a sigh. “Taako, listen carefully. I need you to do something for me. Please try not to be an idiot. I know that’s hard for you, but you have to try.”

“Eat me, Lup,”

“Seriously, ‘Ko. I love a good heist, you know I do, but we’re not staging a B&E when we can just ask for the damn records. She’s not going to say no.”

“I don’t want her involved. She lost that right.”

“Fine, maybe she did,” Lup capitulated. “But she does care, Taako. She’s not going to do anything to work against us.”

“Easy for you to say,” Taako said, peevish and unfair. “You didn’t get dumped in a shitty caravan with no family or friends or memories or any fucking way to protect yourself. If she had ever cared, she would never have done that.”

“I had ten years of hell too,” Lup reminded him sternly. “I still can’t be in small dark places alone without panicking. It sucked balls, an entire bucket of balls. I’ll never excuse her, but I have to move on. She was wrong. I told her a thousand times she was wrong—a thousand times before, and a thousand times after. She knows she was wrong. She knows, and she’s sorry.”

“Too damn little, too damn late.”

“Fine,” Lup said. “Look, I get it. I really do. But I’m still not going all National Treasure on her archives.”

“Fine,” said Taako. “But I’m still not involving her even if we call in the rest of the crew. We ask for the research, no explanations.”

“Fine,” Lup said again, holding her hands up in surrender. “I’m done arguing. But if this really breaks bad, Taako? Just promise me you’ll think about whether you’ll let your anger at Lucretia win out over your concern for the world. Over Kravitz.”

That was hitting below the belt, and Lup knew it. But Taako also knew she had him. “Yeah, okay, whatever,” he said, dismissive. “So are you calling Davenport, or am I?”

“I can do it,” Lup offered. “Hopefully I can reach him. He was ashore last I heard, but he might have sailed again.”

“Cool,” Taako said. “I need to give Angus a buzz anyway.” He was reluctant to tell Angus the update, actually. The boy had been so worried the previous day, and he was on a job today, and Taako hated to interfere with that and give him more cause to worry. But Angus had specifically requested to be kept in the loop, and the kid knew how to properly chew someone out and send them on a guilt trip that required a freaking passport.

 

Taako retreated to his bedroom where he’d left his stone, leaving Lup in the kitchen to try to reach Davenport. He didn’t linger over his explanation to Angus, since Angus was still working and his target was on the move, but he gave him a quick summary. Angus did his best to hide his distress, but Taako knew he was extremely concerned. He could only hope that it wouldn’t cause Angus to make a mistake on the job that could endanger his case, or worse, himself. Angus promised to come back as soon as he could.

Before Taako went back downstairs to rejoin Lup, he thought he ought to touch base with Ren, too. Depending on how things went down, he might have to take another day off work, and he wanted to give her as much notice as possible so she could have a contingency plan in place. His students had probably just had study hall time today, which was well and good for a single day, but they had a syllabus they needed to follow. As a teacher, Taako was still Taako, and he tended to defenestrate convention. It was not uncommon for him to roll into class (five minutes late, latte in hand) and do something completely off the books with his students. But even he couldn’t deny the importance of staying on track with the time goals of a solid syllabus.

He sent her a message saying not to count on him for the following day, but he would let her know if that changed. He’d hardly set his stone down before it vibrated and glowed, and then Ren’s voice came through, garbled by static at first but growing clearer. “Taako?”

He picked the stone back up. “Hey, Ren, what’s hangin’?”

“What’s hangin’?” Ren echoed. “I’m worried! Is Kravitz okay? Are you okay?”

Taako’s message the previous night had mentioned that Kravitz had sustained a minor injury, but he’d offered no further details. He hadn’t planned on telling Ren about the situation, at least not yet, but he realized now he kind of owed her at least a little bit of info. Besides, it was Ren, and she’d proven herself trustworthy a thousand times over in the last eight years since they’d become business partners. “We’re okay. Krav’s fine; it was only a flesh wound, and he sprinkled a little healing magic on it this morning and fixed it right up.”

“What happened?” Ren was no dummy, and she knew Taako wouldn’t be bailing on work the following day if that was all there was to it.

“Little power snafu on the other side,” Taako said in an attempt at nonchalant. No sense in worrying her with unknowns. “We’re still working out the deets, but we’ll get it ironed out.”

Ren didn’t buy his flippant act for a second. “Is it serious?”

Taako could lie, but he found he didn’t want to. “We don’t know yet, but it could be. It’s under control for the moment, but . . .” he trailed off.

“Whoa,” said Ren. “That’s . . . not great. Look, I’m not gonna grill you anymore; all this divine power stuff is above my pay grade, but you just let me know if you need anything. I’ll hold down the fort here, and you take whatever time you need. And keep me posted. We’re not just partners, we’re friends. Kravitz too.”

“Thanks, Ren. Sorry to scare you. And don’t worry, we’ve got this.”

“Of course you do, you’re Taako from TV,” Ren said, and he could hear her encouraging smile. “See you later.”

“Bye, Ren.”

 

When Taako went back downstairs, he heard Lup still speaking to someone on her stone, and then he heard the familiar voice respond. Lucretia. He hung back, concealed around a corner, and he listened. Taako had never pretended to be above eavesdropping, and although part of him never again wanted to hear the voice of the woman he’d once thought of like a sister, morbid curiosity won out.

“. . . bring them myself,” Lucretia was saying. Though her voice was tinny and muffled, Taako was still struck by how much older she sounded than the girlish voice he had once known. He supposed that after his time working with her at the Bureau, he should be used to it, but he’d had so little interaction with her since recovering his memories, and nearly another decade had passed since the Day of Story and Song. With the twenty years she lost in Wonderland, she’d be the equivalent of, what, fifty-six? Fifty-seven? Something like that. Not that Taako cared or anything, not now.

“I know you would, Luce,” Lup was saying. “But under the circumstances, I think it’s best if you just send someone with them.”

“I . . . don’t suppose that should surprise me. Very well; I’ll send someone he trusts with them tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry,” Lup said gently.

“No, I . . . I don’t blame him, Lup. I never have. He’s well within his rights to hate me. I just wish . . .” Lucretia sighed heavily. “But no, that’s futile. I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me. I’ve made peace with it, as much as I can.”

“Don’t give up. Things may change yet,” Lup said. _Like hell,_ Taako thought.

“I doubt that very much, but thanks for the sentiment anyway.”

“Thanks for the help.”

“My pleasure,” said Lucretia. “I’m going to go search my archives for those records now, and I’ll send them first thing in the morning.”

“Super. Talk to you later.”

“I look forward to it. Take care.”

“Bye.”

Silence fell, and Taako gave it a minute for good measure, and then he continued into the kitchen, feigning complete ignorance. Lup informed him that she had reached Davenport, although it had taken some doing. The captain was visiting Merle at Bottlenose Cove while ashore, which was not uncommon, and he hadn’t answered his stone, which was not surprising. Theorizing as to his location, Lup had tried to reach Merle, but he didn’t answer his stone either. Both Merle and Davenport were notoriously bad about leaving their stones behind or simply not checking them. Taako and Lup supposed it must be a (relative) age thing. But on a hunch, Lup had entered Mavis’s frequency, and it just so happened she was spending time at her stepfather’s estate, so she was able to connect Lup to Davenport.

All that effort had been for nothing, though, since Davenport insisted he didn’t have the research journals in question. Lup told him and Merle to stand by for a possible crew meeting in the next day or two, and then she’d had no choice but to contact Lucretia.

Lucretia was certain she had the records they were seeking, and, as Taako had overheard, she offered to deliver them herself. Lup talked her out of it, considering she had requested them to be delivered to Taako’s house. Lup had taken the afternoon away from the Astral Plane, but she was unlikely to avoid returning to work tomorrow. Taako still found it galling that they’d had to contact Lucretia at all, but he was at least grateful that he wouldn’t have to face her.

 

With little else they could do but wait, Taako and Lup decided to prepare some dinner, and by late afternoon, Angus returned home, looking stressed. They ate a solemn meal together, filling Angus in on the full details and what plans they had made so far, vague though they might be. The evening was getting late when Barry arrived. Not much had changed, he said—things were still stable at present, but it had taken a while to restore order. Much remained to do. Kravitz had sent a message to Taako saying not to wait up for him.

Taako installed Barry and Lup in their usual guest room—even as a reaper, Barry didn’t do well without at least a little sleep. Human habits were hard to break.

Taako called it an early night, and he climbed into his empty bed, which, ironically, felt colder than usual. He intended merely to meditate so he could stay alert in case Kravitz returned or tried to contact him, but the stress of the day caught up to him, and he slipped into a fitful sleep, his dreams filled with ash and emptiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are my lifeblood. ♥ Just FYI, I have about 30k written of this fic already, and that's not yet to the halfway point of my outline. I project a minimum of 22 chapters.
> 
> Next up, Kravitz in the Astral Plane!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kravitz intimidates some ghosts. The Raven Queen roasts her son. Istus helps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been very excited to share this one, my dudes. I hope you enjoy it! I'd love to hear what you think. It means so much just to know people are reading, especially in a fairly small and slow-moving fandom.

Appropriately attired, Kravitz entered the Astral Plane among a flurry of activity. He fended off several anxious subordinates seeking assurance, and he promised to be available in his office later to anyone who needed assistance. For now, he wanted to find Barry.

He discovered a frazzled-looking Barry in the antechamber leading to the Raven Queen’s throne room. Barry was warding off any of the Queen’s emissaries who sought an audience—she wasn’t there at present, and she couldn’t possibly attend to everyone personally even if she was. He was doing his best to convey this to a steady flow of concerned employees, and most of them wanted to describe their own experiences. An assistant sat in a chair next to Barry, furiously scribbling down the accounts as they were relayed.

Across the room, another high-ranking reaper, a halfling woman named Leena, mirrored Barry’s task. Leena looked unimpressive, with her soft features and her tousled, mousy-brown hair, but she held her rank for a reason. She was not to be trifled with, and her voice could convey a surprising level of command when she wished.

Barry and Lup had risen through the Raven Queen’s ranks with unprecedented speed, but fortunately most of her servants had been accepting of it. Lup and Barry were, after all, two of the Seven Birds who had saved the world. Plus, they were Kravitz’s protégés (and now, family by marriage), and they had the Queen’s blessing. As such, a smattering of resentment among the bolder reapers had existed at first, as well as some prejudice due to the duo being liches, but Barry and Lup had quickly and undeniably proven their competency. 

Barry might have been regretting his position right about then, because a look of transparent relief crossed his face when he spotted Kravitz. The press of reapers surrounding Barry saw his expression and turned, following his gaze.

Kravitz held up a hand to halt them before they thronged him. “I’m only here for an update,” he said. “Please continue reporting to Barry and Leena for the time being.” He squeezed past them to reach Barry, and they obligingly stepped aside.

“Boy, am I ever glad to see your mug,” Barry muttered from the side of his mouth, inclining his head into Kravitz’s space in an attempt to keep his words from being overheard.

Kravitz decided they would be best off to speak out of earshot of the others. He motioned for Barry to follow him, and they stepped just inside the throne room and shut the door. With his goddess absent, Kravitz felt strange to be there, and the walls seemed to stretch impossibly far without her presence to center the space.

Barry exhaled heavily, losing about two inches of height with the sudden slump of his shoulders. Kravitz was doubly glad he had decided to come immediately, if only to take a little of the pressure off of the others.

“Is everything under control?” he asked.

“More or less,” Barry said. “Folks are just anxious and want answers yesterday.”

“I can’t say that I blame them,” said Kravitz. “I’d love some answers myself, but we can’t produce them from thin air. Any areas of particular concern?”

“I assume Lup gave you the scoop?”

“The quick version, yes.”

“Okay, so, the biggest things are the Stockade and the concern that word might spread in the Material Plane,” Barry said. “The Stockade is secured, but the breach didn’t go unnoticed this time, and we can only hope the souls in there don’t band together and organize a breakout plan in case this happens again.”

“I’ll head over there as soon as possible and check in with the guards,” said Kravitz.

“Probably a good idea,” said Barry. “As for word spreading, at least one bounty that we know of got away and appeared to have realized there was a problem. He might go and tell all his buddies, and then we might have a whole outbreak of necromantic activity from people thinking they can get away with shit.”

“So bringing him in should be a priority then,” Kravitz surmised. “You have the case file?”

“Yeah, we wrote down the number. I’ll give it to you when we go back out there.”

“I’ll make sure it gets reassigned right away. Anything else?”

“That’s the worst of it,” Barry sighed. “Couple injuries this time, but nothing too serious.”

“Give me the names, and I’ll make sure to check in on them.”

“Sure thing, bud.”

“I guess we should get back to it, then,” Kravitz said, steeling himself. “Oh, Lup’s staying with Taako, by the way.”

“I figured.”

“I probably shouldn’t have let her, but, well . . .” Kravitz shrugged.

“Hey, I get it,” said Barry. “I wouldn’t want to leave him alone to stew, either. Plus, if you think you could have stopped her, you’re living in a fantasy world.”

“I know,” Kravitz snorted. “I generally find that it’s in my best interests not to incur her wrath. She’s scary when angry, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I’ve noticed,” said Barry, entirely straight-faced.

 

They returned to the antechamber, and Barry gave Kravitz the requested information. Kravitz patted Barry on the shoulder, a gesture of support and encouragement, and he spoke briefly to Leena to thank her for her efforts. Then he left to attend to what he could before the Raven Queen returned.

Kravitz started by summoning the reaper whose bounty had gotten away. It wasn’t her fault, and after the previous day’s events, he well knew how galling it was to fail in such a way. He wanted to give her the opportunity to resolve the situation herself. She was grateful for the second chance and eagerly accepted. Still, caution was wise, so Kravitz suggested that she bring another reaper of her choice as backup. He also advised her to wait until the Queen returned; assuming no further issues arose between now and then, a statement would be made regarding procedures before releasing all the bounty hunters back into the field.

He made a mental note to reassign his own escaped bounty if he couldn’t see to it himself by the following day. He didn’t think the man had made the same connection, so he was likely less of a risk, but Kravitz didn’t want to take any chances.

That addressed, Kravitz opened a portal to the Stockade where it stood, lonely and ominous, on its island amid the Sea of Souls. The guards appeared restive, but they relaxed marginally when they saw him arrive. They assured him that the wards held strong, and they’d called in the off-duty shift for extra vigilance. The souls imprisoned within had been subdued for the moment, but further trouble brewed.

Kravitz commended the guards for their precaution, but he also advised that they continue to rotate shifts, even if it was on a more limited basis than usual. Even the undead could experience fatigue from too many hours of monotony on the job, and they couldn’t afford mistakes at present.

But there was more Kravitz could do, he thought suddenly. He’d treated with Legion in the past, and he would see what words might accomplish again. Shifting to skeletal form, he brandished his scythe and motioned for the Stockade to be unlocked for him. The guards complied, raising the iron portcullis and swinging the heavy doors open with effort, and Kravitz stepped inside.

The interior of the Stockade vibrated with unrest, the air thick with reawakened discontent and malice. Ghastly lights eddied to and fro, flickering in and out of view, a twisted face appearing here, a wavering humanoid shape there. As Kravitz walked further into the dank, echoing chamber, the ghosts began to encircle him.

He stopped in the center of the room, and he struck the butt of his scythe against the flagstones, which pealed out into the space, empty but for him and the insubstantial shades. With his scythe planted firmly beside him like a banner, he drew himself to his full height and let the red light of his phantom eyes flare bright. The ghosts continued to swirl around him but drew no closer in begrudging recognition of his authority.

“Listen ‘ere,” Kravitz projected, wielding his favored work accent (which was intimidating and effective, and no one could convince him otherwise). “We’ve got a bit of a situation on our ‘ands, don’t we?” He paused, partly for drama, partly because that would be a natural point in an ordinary conversation where one would wait for the other person to speak. The souls, of course, did not reply.

“A right sort of pickle, you might say,” Kravitz continued, unperturbed. “Now, we’ve struck a deal in the past, you an’ I ‘ave, and that worked out all right, so I thought it worth comin’ ‘ere for a little chat.”

The spirits surged around him but still offered no vocal response, and whether that meant they agreed or disagreed with the past deal having worked out all right, Kravitz didn’t know, and he decided not to worry about it.

“I think it’s fair to say that any sort of breakin’ out or rebellin’ you’re considerin’ won’t work out too nicely for you. For one thing, we’ll just pick you right back up and pop you back in ‘ere, won’t we? An’ you won’t like how that turns out for you.

“But bigger things are at stake ‘ere. It’s the end of, well, of everything, I’m talkin’ ‘bout, innit? If we ‘ave a breakdown of power, if our operation ‘ere shuts down, then you lot might become trapped ‘ere, or worse. Even if you escaped, you’d have no world worth goin’ back to, because if the balance of life and death is lost, then so is everything else, innit? An’ you won’t ever have a hope of goin’ to your final rest, you’ll just go mad in the end.”

The souls had stilled, and all was deathly quiet. Kravitz had their attention. Encouraged, he continued. “Now, what do you say we, uh, we come to a little arrangement ‘ere. You don’t go causin’ any trouble for me or any of the Raven Queen’s emissaries while we’re dealin’ with this situation, an’ I’ll see what I can do to get your sentences shortened a bit.”

Breaking their silence at last, the shades of many voices spoke as one. “We shall consider.”

To be honest, Kravitz hadn’t expected a more definitive or agreeable answer than that, so he counted the whole endeavor a net success. Still, he couldn’t resist one final threat. “You’d better consider right well, then, hadn’t you? If you cause any trouble, I’ll see that each an’ every one of you gets their sentence doubled. That’s a personal guarantee from ol’ Kravitz, that is.”

The ghosts did not deign to offer any further response, and they began to recede from around Kravitz. Hefting his scythe with a flourish, he exited the Stockade. He had done all that words could do, and he only hoped it would be enough.

 

With those most crucial tasks completed, enough time had passed that the Raven Queen should have returned. Kravitz stepped through a portal directly into the throne room, and sure enough, his goddess occupied her throne once again.

She was not alone, however. Another seat had joined the Queen’s, of simpler, sleeker design but no less regal, and the two thrones stood with equal eminence on the dais. Istus sat upon this new throne, and a serene smile softened her kindly features when she saw Kravitz arrive.

Istus, clad in simple whites and silvers, starkly contrasted with her dark and ornate surroundings, but somehow, she did not seem out of place. A rightness existed in the chasm between the goddesses’ opposite natures, shining light on how they complimented each other and struck a perfect balance.

The Raven Queen turned her inscrutable avian face toward her Grim Reaper. “Your coming was unnecessary, Kravitz, but I know you’d disagree. I appreciate it all the same.”

“My Queen. Lady Istus,” Kravitz said, inclining his head in obeisance toward each in turn.

“He works too hard,” the Queen said in mock confidence to her celestial companion, a clawed hand theatrically shielding her beaked mouth. “When he doesn’t become sidetracked by the opportunity for a wager on the job, that is.”

Kravitz flushed. Being the butt of a goddess’s joke in front of another goddess was hardly a comfortable position to be in, even if he knew it came from a place of fondness. If someone else had said that to him, Kravitz would have become flustered, defensive, and a bit belligerent. Not rising to the bait was an exercise in extreme self-control—which, he suspected, was precisely why the Queen goaded him thus. That, and for her own amusement.

Still, he was heartened to hear his Queen joking at all; some new development must have reassured her.

Istus tittered, eyeing Kravitz with levity. “That worked out well in the past, though,” she said in her lilting but deceptively ordinary voice that immediately made a person feel at ease. “I seem to recall a time when my future emissaries escaped his grasp because he lost a simple card game.”

Kravitz knew his place, but he also knew when he could get away with a little backtalk. Being the Queen’s favorite afforded him certain liberties, after all, and he was not above taking them on occasion. “A card game where my opponent cheated with an enchanted deck, I would like to point out. But with all due respect, don’t we have better things to discuss than making fun of me?”

“Better, no; but more important, I will concede,” said the Queen.

Kravitz pursed his lips but allowed it.

“In the wake of this second incident, I felt I must make certain provisions against such a lapse happening again. I sought the aid of my fellow deities, and Istus graciously offered her assistance. She has agreed to commune with me for the time being.”

_Is that what they’re calling it these days?_ an impudent voice that sounded a great deal like Taako’s said, unbidden, in Kravitz’s head. Much to his chagrin, the corner of his mouth twitched upward, but he quickly schooled his features back into a neutral expression. Istus cut her eyes toward him but said nothing; and as usual, it was impossible to tell what the Raven Queen had or hadn’t noticed.

“By joining her power with mine,” the Queen continued, “she should, in theory, be able to fill in any gaps that would be left if my own power fails again, thereby ensuring that the operations of my domain can continue uninterrupted. It’s only a temporary solution, of course, but it will buy us some time to uncover the root of the problem.”

“I’m pleased to help in any way I can,” said Istus, smiling softly at her companion in a manner that seemed somehow private.

Kravitz shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. In the narrow space between the thrones, he thought he saw their hands joined, goddess to goddess, but that couldn’t be, since he was certain that both of Istus’s hands were busy, as ever, with her knitting. He looked away, his mind unable to parse the duality.

“That sounds like a wise solution,” Kravitz offered, feeling a touch out-of-step with this conversation’s progression.

“I’m glad you approve,” said the Queen.

No, this meeting was not going at all like Kravitz had expected.

The Raven Queen must have read him, because she took pity on him. She dropped the teasing tone and said, “I’d like to hear a status report now, if you have one, Kravitz.”

With relief, Kravitz related to her all that he had learned in the last hour as well as the measures he had taken himself.

“I should probably reprimand you for taking it upon yourself to offer clemency to my prisoners, but since your ultimatum seems to have had some effect, I’ll allow it.” Reassuring though it was to hear her say so, Kravitz hadn’t been worried. He had served the Raven Queen long enough that he knew precisely the limits of his decision-making autonomy. “So, which voice did you use this time for maximum intimidation?”

So they were back to this game. Kravitz spluttered, but it didn’t matter since the question had apparently been rhetorical. The Queen leaned toward Istus and stage-whispered, “He has this charming little thing he does where he tries out different accents when he’s posturing. They’re not very good, but don’t tell him.”

“So I’ve heard,” Istus chuckled. “I believe Taako describes it as ‘hella dorky but weirdly hot.’”

Kravitz frowned, feeling petulant. He wasn’t sure when Istus had had occasion to hear Taako say that, but he didn’t doubt that those were Taako’s exact words. But they could mock him all they wanted; he wasn’t going to quit the accents now. It was sort of a matter of pride at this point—his own fun little character trait. It was enjoyable, and wasn’t finding the fun in your job an ingredient for a successful career? Plus, the accents _worked,_ damn it.

“Look,” Kravitz pleaded, the affected poise he cultivated in her presence finally giving up the ghost, “no offense, but, um, could we maybe not? I’ve had sort of a, uh, stressful couple of days over here, so like, I’d really appreciate not being roasted and all. I’m glad you’re feeling better and everything, but I’m just trying to do my job here, so maybe we could just . . . I don’t know, _not?”_

“Of course,” the Queen said amiably. “You’ve done well, Kravitz. But I have come to expect no less of you.”

As always when his goddess praised him, pride warmed his heart. “Thank you,” he said. It didn’t seem like quite the right response, but he couldn’t say nothing, and ‘I try’ or ‘you’re welcome’ was too arrogant. “What are your directions going forward?”

“With Istus supporting me, I believe everyone will be able to continue as usual, with a couple minor exceptions. I think it would be prudent for all my bounty hunters to pair up in the field for the present. If that means that some of the low-priority cases have to be shelved for a time, so be it. You yourself may use your own discretion, but I would still advise extra caution. I may need you close at hand for a while to help direct operations, anyway.

“The rest of my reapers should continue routine soul-collection. Our greatest duty is in shepherding the world’s dead, and we must carry it out at all costs. A bounty may be pursued even after a delay, but we cannot leave untethered souls to wander.”

“I understand,” said Kravitz, finding his conversational footing again. “Should I relay your orders to the others?”

“Please do. I leave it in your hands to determine which bounties take priority and to assign them accordingly. Once you complete that task, you may return to your own usual duties. I hate to waste your talents on administration, but I trust you to make wise decisions, and I have other matters that need my attention.”

“I’m happy to do whatever you need. I’ll take care of it.”

“I know you will,” the Queen said warmly. “Now, I’d like to receive the full accounts that have been reported thus far, so send Leena and Barry in when you leave, one at a time.”

“Okay,” said Kravitz. “Is there anything else?”

“No, that will do. Make sure you take time to rest when you need it. I’m sorry your day off was cut short. Give my apologies to your husband when you return home.”

“And give him my regards,” Istus chimed in. “He is, after all, _my_ emissary.”

“For now,” said the Queen. The exchange had the air of a well-worn private joke.

“I will,” Kravitz said, unable to stop himself from smiling a little. It delighted him whenever his goddess spoke about his husband as though it was a given that she would one day accept him into her retinue as well. He was grateful that, assuming the current crisis was averted, he would never have to worry about losing Taako to death. And it was amusing to see their respective goddesses bantering about who had a claim on him.

“Thank you, Kravitz. You may go.”

With a final bow, Kravitz left the presence of the two deities.

 

Leena had seniority, so Kravitz sent her to speak with the Raven Queen first, and he stopped to speak with Barry once more. The press of people was beginning to thin, and Kravitz could see Barry reaching his limit of communication and diplomacy. Playing an active management role required a level of comfort with social interaction that Barry didn’t possess. He was capable, but he didn’t like it.

“Hey,” Barry said, sounding as tired as he looked. “She okay?”

“Much improved. Enough to poke fun at me, anyway.”

“Good. That she’s doing better, I mean. Although I admit it’s always a good boost for my confidence to hear that she razzes you too.”

Kravitz snorted. “When she doesn’t, then worry. Istus was with her. They’re ‘communing’ to share power, or something like that.”

The corner of Barry’s mouth twitched upward in a familiar way. Undoubtedly, an intrusive mental voice of his own had supplied the same saucy quip to which Kravitz had been subjected earlier. Their significant others were twins, after all.

“I have a lot to do, so I’m going to head to my office,” Kravitz said. “Once you’re done speaking with the Queen, come check in with me again if you can. If she hasn’t given you a specific job, you can help me hand out assignments.”

“Sure thing, bud.”

 

On his way to his office, Kravitz detoured to find the reapers who had been wounded, since that was the one task on his earlier agenda he hadn’t yet accomplished. He was relieved to see for himself that none of the injuries were serious. The reapers in question were appreciative to have someone of Kravitz’s rank show concern for them, and he told them all to take whatever time (within reason) that they needed to recover.

At last he retreated to his office and got to work on the tasks the Queen had given him. He broadcast a memo relaying the Queen’s orders regarding soul-collection and doubling up in the field, and he told everyone to stand by for new assignments. Then, he had the daunting task of going through all the open cases and ordering them by priority. Uninterrupted, it would have taken some time, but a steady trickle of subordinates interrupting and wanting to speak with him made the endeavor seem endless. He might have made a mistake in telling people he would be available.

None of this was Kravitz’s favorite sort of work; he much preferred to be pursuing bounties himself rather than being stuck in his office. Generally, that was what he did, and only Barry and Lup officially reported to him. But as the Grim Reaper, he commanded a level of respect from the others that made him uniquely suited to act on the Queen’s behalf.

Barry joined him after a couple hours, and Kravitz immediately appointed Barry liaison. He was able to make quicker progress after that, but his to-do list still stretched out far ahead of him.

Evening in the Material Plane was well advanced when Kravitz finally took pity on the exhausted Barry and sent him home, or rather, sent him to Kravitz’s own home to join Lup and Taako. Kravitz relayed a message to Taako telling him not to wait up for him. He was determined to see the reassignments through to the end before going home himself, and he would be lucky if that was before dawn.

 

As it was, it was around four in the morning before he finally allowed himself to leave. He opened a portal directly into him and Taako’s bedroom so as not to disturb the rest of the household, and he shucked off his suit as quietly as he could.

Kravitz didn’t strictly require the sleep, but he still needed some form of rest, and he wanted the comfort and normalcy of lying in bed beside his husband. Taako liked the luxury of sleeping and indulged whenever he could, and Kravitz likewise had developed a renewed fondness for it that several centuries of being undead had made him forget.

Taako liked sleeping, that is, when he didn’t have night terrors. They had plagued him at various times in the past, when his life was at a particular low point, but over the last few years, they had almost ceased entirely. Tonight, however, Taako’s sleeping was fitful, and Kravitz could see with his darkvision the sheen of sweat on Taako’s brow.

Kravitz climbed into bed and reached for him. Taako didn’t wake exactly, too enmeshed in deep slumber, but he rolled over to face Kravitz and burrowed into his arms, a small sound akin to a whimper escaping his dreaming lips. Kravitz held him until his breathing evened out and his pulse calmed, and then he too slipped into welcome oblivion.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angus has an idea. Merle has some technical difficulties. Kravitz talks Taako down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: mild panic attack

“So what you’re saying, Barry, is that even with the research, you don’t have enough to go on to find any answers,” said Davenport, leaning forward from his cushioned perch to place his folded hands on the table.

A couple days had passed since the second instance of the Raven Queen feeling ill, and the former IPRE crew (minus Lucretia and plus Angus, which was a major trade-up in Taako’s book) had gathered at Taako’s place for a team meeting. Everyone was sitting around the dining room table with Davenport at the head. Taako had refused to budge on leaving Lucretia out of the discussion, and the others had reluctantly complied. Kravitz was working, but Lup and Barry had managed to slip away for a little while.

With the help of Istus, things seemed to have stabilized for the moment in the Astral Plane, but even so, Taako couldn’t shake the feeling that it was borrowed time. He’d gone back to work for the past two days, but he’d been moody and distracted, and he’d been increasingly anxious to take some sort of action.

“Not exactly,” said Barry. He nudged his glasses back up the bridge of his nose—a nervous habit. “But without an idea of what I’m looking for, it could take weeks or months to collect samples from the Transitive Planes here and analyze the data sets for similarities. _If_ it’s not a complete red herring and totally unrelated, that is.”

“Could this be an attack of some sort?” asked Merle. “You guys are all talking like it’s an illness, but could a person be behind this?”

“Anything is possible at this point,” said Davenport. “But we don’t have any other clues. I think our best bet is to let Barry keep following our one lead, and the rest of us will just have to stand by and stay alert.”

“Fucking super,” snapped Taako, peevish. “Like hell am I just gonna sit around and wait while Nerd Lord here plays with test tubes and crunches numbers on nothing more than a hunch.”

“Don’t you call Lucas ‘Nerd Lord’?” Barry complained. “I’m pretty sure I’m a damn sight cooler than Lucas. That guy sucks.”

“Fair point. How about Nerd King? Nerd Baron? Maybe Nerd Boss? Take your pick.”

“Those are all way fucking worse,” Barry grumbled.

“Data’s great and all,” said Magnus diplomatically, “but I’d feel much better if there was just some sort of monster I could beat to a pulp.”

Taako didn’t always approve of Magnus’s default solution of attack first, ask questions never, but he felt a surge of kinship toward his fighter friend in that moment.

“We all would,” Davenport sighed. “But that’s not exactly on the table right now, is it? Taako, I know this is personal for you in a way it’s not for the rest of us, but we’re all concerned. If this breaks bad, it breaks _really damn bad._ So if anyone has any other ideas, I’m all ears.”

“Nah, you’re all mustache. _I’m_ all ears,” said Lup. “But that aside, what can we do? We’re taking all the precautionary measures we can over in Reaper Town, but that will only last as long as RQ’s power holds out. After that we’re all fucked with a capital F.”

Taako’s nails dug crescents into his palm.

“Well, maybe not Lup and me,” Barry pointed out. “Not that it will do us much good. We can’t exactly run the Astral Plane on our own, even if we somehow kept our reaper powers.”

“Could we be deputized to help you run things or something?” Magnus asked, wide eyes alight with excitement at the prospect, like a kid about to run off with his parent’s sword for use in make-believe.

“That’s fucking stupid,” said Taako, kinship short-lived and charity nonexistent. “Sorry to salt your game, but that dog don’t hunt. You just heard him say they’d lose their powers.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Magnus, visibly disappointed.

“Wait a second,” said Angus. “Why wouldn’t you two be fucked?”

“We were liches first and technically still are,” explained Lup. “Unlike the rest of her servants, the Queen didn’t make us undead through her own power. But without her, we’d be volatile and at risk of going Dark Side, so it’s pretty much a lose-lose regardless.”

“You kept it under control for years before you became reapers, though,” Angus said.

“Sure, but we had a mission then, and we were resetting every year. We might be okay for a while, but it might not last. Especially if we were abruptly untethered.”

“Oh,” said Angus. He frowned and looked down at his lap, but Taako could see the wheels spinning in that overactive brain of his.

Gloomy silence descended on the group, disheartened by the lack of ideas.

After a minute or two, Magnus’s glum face brightened, and he swiveled in his chair to face away from the table. Taako craned his neck to see what had caught Magnus’s attention. Purrsace, Kravitz and Taako’s orange tabby of indeterminate origin, had slunk across the room a couple feet away from Magnus. Magnus leaned over, attempting to pet him. Purrsace hissed and then darted out of sight.

“Must smell the dogs,” said Magnus with renewed disappointment.

It had nothing to do with the dogs. Although Taako and Kravitz owned their cats equally, Purrsace was Kravitz’s cat, in the sense that he was the only feline member of the household that would give Kravitz the time of day, and he had no use for Taako or anyone else.

Kravitz, forever mournful that their other cats liked to pretend he didn’t exist, absolutely doted on Purrsace. Consequently, he was a horribly spoiled little beast, in Taako’s opinion, but seeing Kravitz cuddle and coo at the furry monster made up for it. (Quite frankly, that did things to Taako—things that threatened to make him consider how Kravitz might act with a child, but that was a terrifying thought Taako hadn’t allowed himself to think. Not yet, at any rate.)

“I think Magnus might have been on to something earlier,” blurted Angus, startling the others back to attention.

“Come again, little man?” Taako prompted, packing as much incredulity into his voice and expression as he possibly could.

“I’m taller than you!” protested Angus. “But hear me out.” He leaned forward eagerly, ebullient as always with the advent of an idea. “The Raven Queen empowers her emissaries in two separate and distinct ways. One, she gives them a continued existence after death, and two, she lends them the abilities that make up the reaper skillset—traveling between the planes, collecting souls, et cetera. But Barry and Lup are proof that it’s not necessarily a package deal, which makes it sound to me like being dead isn’t a prerequisite for being a reaper. So in theory, living people _could_ serve as reapers if the Raven Queen gave them the abilities. Lup, Barry, does that track?”

“Maybe, sure,” shrugged Lup dubiously. “I mean, I think having living servants is out of line with her whole shtick, but your logic is okay. But how does that help us? Even if she gave a mortal reaper skills, they’d still crap out with the rest of ours if she has another episode.”

“I know,” said Angus. “That’s what I’ve been thinking about. What if, instead of her fueling those abilities through a constant power flow, she could instead imbue a weapon with those core skills? That weapon could then be soul-bound, and it would function much like your scythes. I know it wouldn’t solve the main problem, and it wouldn’t be sustainable long-term, but if it could buy some time and keep the world from destabilizing for at least a little while, it might be worth a shot.”

“The boy has a solid idea,” mused Davenport. He looked at Barry and Lup in turn. “Do you think the Queen would go for something like that?”

“Ordinarily, no way in hell,” said Barry, “but in dire circumstances, she might. I don’t think we’ve reached a level of crisis yet that would make her consider it, but it’s worth sticking a pin in the idea.”

“Cool,” said Taako, “cool cool cool. No offense, Ango, it’s a good idea and all, but nothing we’ve come up with helps the Raven Queen. None of it helps Kravitz.” His voice ricocheted between octaves even more than usual, betraying his anxiety.

Lup found his hand underneath the table and squeezed.

“I know it’s not the same,” said Barry quietly, “but he’s my family too, Taako. He’s my friend. We’re not going to give up. I’m going to keep on with the research, and we’ll all keep our eyes open for other clues.”

“He’s one of us now, Taako,” added Magnus. “We’ll go to the same lengths for him we would for you. And we still don’t know that this won’t all just blow over.”

Even after more than a century spent in the company of this motley crew, it could still surprise Taako how much they cared for him. A youth spent with no one caring for him but his twin and himself was hard to shake. And it was doubly surprising to him that these people, this family of circumstance, would so willingly and easily accept another person into their circle just because Taako cared for him.

But he wasn’t about to let his gratitude manifest as visible emotion. Instead, he said solemnly, “I think at this point, all of our intuition for trouble is pretty well developed. Does this really feel like something that’s going to blow over?”

No one responded, but their silence said enough.

“I hate to conclude the meeting on that note,” said Davenport at last, “but unless anyone else has something to add, I think that’s all we can accomplish today. We’ll revisit Angus’s idea if things really go pear-shaped, but in the meantime, all we can do is research and observe.”

“And cross our fingers,” said Magnus.

Taako scowled, but he knew Davenport was right. Without anything more to go on, they couldn’t do anything. He hated feeling so helpless, unable to take any measures to protect the man he loved. He hated that he was once again having to confront the fear of his sister and brother-in-law losing themselves, which he had thought was long behind them.

No one had anything to add, so they all began to get up from the table and mill awkwardly about. It seemed that no one wanted to leave immediately, maybe out of some misplaced desire to be supportive. Taako wished they would just go so he could stress out in peace.

Purrsace reappeared, and Angus, ever optimistic even though he knew better, scooped up the cat before the tabby terror could abscond again. Surlier than usual due to the unwelcome hubbub in his house, Purrsace clawed Angus, hard, on the cheek. Angus yelped and released the cat.

“He’s too set in his ways, pumpkin, you know that,” said Taako, but it wasn’t without a twinge of sympathy. “Let me see your face.” He seized Angus’s chin, pulling him down to eye level, and he looked at the claw marks, welling with blood. “Fuck, you’re bleeding. Dumbass cat.”

“It’s okay, sir. It really doesn’t hurt very much at all!” Despite his insistence, the boy gritted his teeth and winced.

Merle waddled over, and from his bag he pulled out his Extreme Teen Bible, the cover grungy and torn and probably a little sticky after years of use. “Let me fix that for you, kid.”

“With what, a bandaid?” Taako sniped habitually. “Surely you’re not actually going to use some of those elusive cleric healing skills I’ve heard about. I thought they were a myth!”

“Merle’s gonna heal somebody?” Magnus said at the same time. “I should have sold tickets! Taako, you got any popcorn around here?”

“Aww, stuff it, fellas, give a guy a break,” Merle groused. “I’ve healed you jokers plenty of times.”

“You don’t need to waste a spell slot on me, sir!” Angus said. “I’m okay, really!”

“What the hell else am I gonna do with it today? Gotta keep my magic muscles in shape. Now quit arguing and hold still.”

It had taken years, but Merle had finally mellowed toward Angus. Perhaps it was Merle’s mended relationship with his own kids, or perhaps it was that he had been working with children with his Extreme Teen Adventures for a while now and thus had developed a higher tolerance for them. Not that Angus had ever been a typical child, and now, he wasn’t a child at all. Most likely, Merle had just come to accept Angus as part of the ragtag family made up of the crew and those closest to them.

Holy book in hand, Merle’s lips formed the words of a spell, and he lifted his other hand to channel it toward Angus. Nothing happened. Merle frowned, puzzled, and then he repeated the action, but no dice. The room fell deathly silent, everyone frozen in sudden, growing dread. Merle tried a third time, but still no magic came forth.

Sheepish and perturbed, Merle stepped back and scratched a hand through his beard. “You guys got any idea why Pan ain’t answering?”

Taako felt sick to his stomach, but he forced words out, if only to ground himself in reality. “Did you seriously pay zero attention, old man? Did you just fucking snooze through this whole damn convo?”

“No!” Merle retorted. “I listened! But what does Pan have to do with the Raven Queen?”

“I’m out,” Taako declared. His own voice sounded distant and amorphous, as though heard through water. “I’m fucking donezo, finito, _through._ The rest of you guys can deal with his horseshit. Taako’s peacing out. Catch you all on the flipside.”

He was taking his anger and fear out on Merle, but although Merle’s denseness was indeed staggeringly frustrating, the truth was that Taako literally needed out. The beginnings of a panic attack were encroaching upon him, like walls closing in all around, and he couldn’t breathe. He hurried from the room before anyone could stop him, and he headed straight through the house and out the back door.

 

Being a city home, Taako and Kravitz’s property didn’t have a backyard so much as a courtyard, but Taako kept a small herb garden for his own culinary use, and he had had a couple tomato plants in pots until the recent frosts had finally done them in. He didn’t have time to tend to much else, and besides, that was what the market was for. But he liked the convenience of at least having some of his favored herbs on hand.

In another corner, Kravitz had been trying to coax some flowers to grow all summer without much success. As with the kitchen, his talents lay elsewhere, and his thumb was anything but green. But still he persevered.

Taako sat down heavily on the wooden bench beside Kravitz’s struggling asters, and he hung his head down and forced himself to breathe, in and out, steady and deliberate. The crisp air filled his lungs, and after a minute or two, he felt more present. The late afternoon sun warmed his back, and he realized he’d been shivering.

They’d been to hell and back, he and the crew, and although he would readily admit he wasn’t always the boldest person, it wasn’t like him to completely flake out and bolt. But this was different. He finally had a home, a permanent home, and a family other than Lup—a _husband,_ in fact, and who would ever have thought that Taako of all people would tie the knot?! The prospect of that all crumbling to nothingness frightened him more than anything else he’d ever faced.

He’d let his guard down, let himself get comfortable, and he should have known better. He should have known that he would never have the kind of life that other people do, the sort of stability. He didn’t deserve it. He was selfish, and he could be cruel and unkind, and he was a thief and a liar and didn’t always make the right decisions for the right reasons.

A bird chirped merrily, and for a wild, maniacal second, Taako thought how satisfying it would be to hurl a Magic Missile at it and shut it up for its audacity.

He needed to talk to Kravitz. Kravitz could always talk him down from these moods, whenever Taako struggled with guilt or past trauma or insecurity. Lup could too, but Taako needed Kravitz this time.

His stone was around his neck, fortunately, so he pulled it out from beneath his shirt and entered Kravitz’s frequency.

Only a few moments passed before Kravitz answered. “Hi, babe!” he said brightly. “Sorry, but can I call you back in a little while? I’m on a job.”

“I—” Taako started, but his voice cracked badly, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “I just needed to hear your voice.”

“What’s wrong?” Kravitz asked, instantly serious.

“You’re on a job, it can wait,” Taako attempted, but their relationship had reached that point of attunement that made deception difficult. But then again, strange and incongruous with his own personality though it was, he’d always been laid bare before Kravitz, hadn’t he?

“You’re more important,” said Kravitz.

“I’m not. We both know I’m not. You’ve got your, your, like, sacred duties and shit.” Taako was rambling now, and he was vaguely aware that his thought train was going way off the rails, but he couldn’t stop himself. “If you had to make a choice between me and your Queen, who would you choose?”

He heard a sharp inhale from Kravitz, who was clearly taken aback. “Taako—”

“Shit, no, don’t—don’t answer that,” Taako said, forcing a deep breath. This wasn’t what he wanted. This wasn’t what he’d intended. “That—that wasn’t, um, that wasn’t fair. I don’t know why I said it. Fuck, I suck at this.”

“Sweetheart, what happened?” Kravitz asked gently.

“Merle tried to cast a healing spell but couldn’t get through to Pan.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Kravitz cursed.

“Exactly,” said Taako.

“That changes things,” said Kravitz. “That . . . really changes things.”

“No fucking kidding. We just went from isolated incident to potential epidemic.”

“Assuming the thing with Pan is related—”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m buying coincidence,” said Taako wryly.

“Yeah, that is pretty unlikely.”

“But you’re okay, right?” asked Taako, just to be sure. “No more system crashes on the Astral network?”

“No, everything’s been business as usual. I’m fine. I was starting to think that maybe the whole thing was a fluke after all and that it was all behind us, but so much for that.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “Are _you_ okay? Do you need me to come home?”

“No, I’ll be all right. You’ve got important shit to do. Lup’s here, and the rest of the gang are too. I’m good.” It was more or less the truth. He still felt shaky and anxious, and he still felt a vague sense that this (like every other crisis in his life) was inescapable karma for him being a shitty person, but just knowing that Kravitz was fine had helped to calm him.

“Good,” said Kravitz. “Hey, listen, Taako, I want you to remember something for me, okay? The whole world loves you, and I love you the most of all of them. Well, Lup and I are probably tied, but still. You’re incredible, and you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. We’re going to get through this. I have faith in our friends, I have faith in us, and I have faith in you.”

How did Taako ever end up with someone who knew him so well, someone who was so sweet and considerate? It had to have been a mistake, some sort of clerical error made in some celestial cubicle where some mystical being assigned soul mates, or whatever the hell mushy term you wanted to use for two people that had paired off like they had. But mistake or not, Kravitz was his now, and Taako wasn’t going to let anyone or anything take him away.

Normally Taako would riposte with a crack about Kravitz being a sap, but for once he couldn’t muster the desire to profane the moment. “Thanks, babe. I love you too.”

“You sure you’re good?”

“I’m good, skele-man. You go beat some sense into some ghosts or whatever is on the ol’ agenda. I’ll see you when you get home.”

“Okay. Love you. Bye.”

“Bye, Krav.”

Once the stone fell silent, Taako mentally counted down thirty seconds, the bare minimum of time that propriety insisted upon, and then Lup appeared, right on schedule. She wandered over, attempting casual, but Taako could see the tension of effort her restraint had required. He scooted over to make room on the narrow bench, and she plopped down beside him, their knees bumping.

“Did you talk to Kravitz?” Lup asked, nonchalant.

“You know I did. You were lurking just inside the door for most of our conversation.”

“You got me!” said Lup, holding up her hands in mock surrender. “In that case, I won’t ask if he’s okay, because I already know the answer. Are _you_ okay?”

“You heard me answer that too.”

“Yeah, but I want to hear you say it to me.”

Taako rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t be angry with her for that. She was used to him deflecting and hiding his true feelings from everyone else, and she couldn’t be expected to understand how well and truly he was past that with Kravitz. “I’m good. Well, good is relative under the circumstances, but I’ve got my shit back together, anyway.”

She nodded, satisfied. “Pan came back online a few minutes after you left. Merle got Angus all fixed up.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No. I’m not going to insult your intelligence like that. Just letting you know.”

“Cool.”

“Angus is still here, but I sent everyone else home. Figured you’d want the space.”

“Thanks.”

“Barry headed to the other side. She’s probably heard about Pan by now, but he figured he should check in just in case.”

Taako nodded but said no more. He leaned his head over to rest on his sister’s shoulder and let out a long and cleansing exhale.

Lup put her arm around him. “We’ll fix this, Koko. I promise.”

They sat like that, basking in the comfort and safety of their bond, until the sun dipped below the horizon and the air took on a chill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love hearing from you guys, so don't hesitate to leave a comment! You can also find me on tumblr as terene.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More gods fall ill. Someone tries to resurrect a chimera. Kravitz’s poor luck continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: Allusions to Kravitz’s past death. Brief mention of sex. Mild series-typical violence.

Somewhere deep in the forests of the Teeth, a crumbling temple stood, to all appearances abandoned. An order of druids once had worshipped therein, but the structure had lain vacant and untended for many years, and nature had begun to reclaim it. A glow of predawn light crept upward from the horizon, barely visible through the trees. On a rocky outcropping, Kravitz crouched, waiting and watching.

The location made him uneasy; it held a certain sense of déjà vu for him although he had truly never been there before—an echo of a distant and dark memory, long suppressed.

Perhaps coming alone had been a mistake.

Following Pan, reports of other minor members of the pantheon experiencing symptoms had trickled in over the last week, but fortunately, none of them were ones whose powers, if interrupted, would trigger worldwide cataclysm. A spot of unseasonal weather here, a touch of infertility there—that was about the worst that could be expected at present.

The deities had agreed, through whatever remote method of communication they employed, that those who had shown signs of illness should be quarantined within their respective realms. Istus, however, had chosen to remain with the Raven Queen, deeming her cosmic duty important enough to risk exposure. Besides, if the illness was indeed viral, Istus had already spent enough time in close contact with the Raven Queen that she was likely already infected, or at least a carrier.

The Raven Queen herself had had several more episodes of increasing severity, and she had confided to Kravitz that she was beginning to feel weakened even in between. But with the help of Istus, the outflow of power to her servants had thus far held steady.

Therefore Kravitz had dared set out alone, willing to gamble with time and luck. With everyone else teaming up, a backlog of bounties had begun to build, and when this case had come across Kravitz’s desk, no one else had been free to take the assignment.

So here he was, lying in wait for his quarry on a frosty height. He shifted, restive. He’d be more comfortable sitting, but he was on edge, and he wanted to be able to move at a moment’s notice.

Kravitz wasn’t exactly sure what, if anything, he would encounter, but he had a notion. Three human spellcasters—a cleric and two wizards—that had been on the Queen’s watch list for a while now had recently begun meeting in this area, and they tended to meet just after first light. Things had escalated the day before when the trio had killed and then reanimated several woodland creatures. Although certainly an infraction, that alone wasn’t a crime that would land them in the Eternal Stockade, but it never ended there. Kravitz felt certain the previous day’s activities had been a test run and that the three were poised to step things up a notch or several.

According to local legend, a chimera had descended upon the druids that had worshipped in this temple, killing several of them before ultimately being defeated by the old priest. Their numbers diminished, the surviving druids had fled and never returned to their former holy place.

Rumor had said that the bones of the creature still lay moldering within, and a quick reconnaissance circuit upon Kravitz’s arrival had confirmed the presence of the skeletal remains of some large beast. Kravitz feared that reanimating them was the goal of the magic users he was tracking. Resurrecting such a monstrosity, especially with the intention to have it wreak havoc on innocents at the caster’s behest, was unquestionably a punishable offense.

The level of magical ability required to accomplish such a feat was great, so if that was truly the plan, at least one of the casters must be very powerful, most likely the cleric. Ordinarily this would be no problem for Kravitz, but now, he wasn’t sure.

A single ray of dawn cut through the trees and painted the mossy stones of the temple’s walls crimson. Any minute now, the fledgling necromancers might arrive.

Something moved in the periphery of Kravitz’s vision, and he startled. A closer look revealed the culprit to be a mere doe, foraging for breakfast on the forest floor.

He needed to get it together. He was doubting the wisdom of coming alone more every minute, but that would do him no good now. There was no time to call for backup, and he couldn’t lose this window to potentially thwart some sinister plan that could put innocent lives in danger.

To distract himself from worrying, he did what had become his default method of mental comfort and thought of Taako. He thought of the previous night, the first in recent days that had seen them tumble into bed for reasons other than exhaustion. He thought of Taako, who had caught Kravitz’s gaze and held it while he stripped off every one of his many layers while Kravitz watched, mouth going dry from being agape. He thought of how he’d finally repaid the favor of that morning over a week ago with lips and tongue and hands.

Kravitz smiled despite himself, feeling steadier. In fact, the distraction had worked almost too well, because he nearly missed the arrival of two figures, only noticing them when they stepped into the clearing before the temple’s doors. Their silhouettes suggested they were a woman and a man, which aligned with Kravitz’s intel.

While his vantage allowed him an excellent view of the entire clearing, he was well hidden, but he crouched lower behind some shrubs all the same. Within minutes, the third member of the party, another woman, arrived. Kravitz watched the trio stop and speak together for a minute, and then he saw them ascend the stone steps and pull open the rotting wood doors on their creaking hinges. They stepped inside and disappeared from Kravitz’s sight.

Soundlessly, he dropped from his perch and stalked toward the temple. He rounded the building and slipped through a back door he’d scouted earlier.

Inside, the temple was dank and musty, and the limited light of the dawn hadn’t yet found its way through the high-arched windows or the single hole torn into the ceiling of the structure, stones tumbled beneath. The door Kravitz had entered opened on a short hallway that led past a vestry, and another doorway at the end led to the main room. A door had occupied the frame once, but it had fallen to the side, torn off its hinges and busted. Kravitz stood in the shadows of the doorway and peered inside.

The temple, though small, had been beautiful once, with vaulted ceilings and many windows. The remnants of intricately carved appointments of wood—columns, railings, latticework, furniture—could still be seen, but many of them had been reduced to kindling in what had obviously been a violent struggle. A large portion of the stone walls and ceiling were blackened as though by fire. A stone altar stood at the head of the room, but it had been broken nearly in half, one side crumbled away.

In the center of it all lay the bones of a massive beast. Three distinct and different skulls plus the sharp angles of skeletal wings gave credence to the rumors of a chimera.

His targets had wasted no time. The tableau that greeted Kravitz could hardly be more stereotypical, with candles lit and bowls of components set on the ruined altar. A hooded woman, likely the cleric from the look of her, combined the ingredients while her male wizard companion listed them aloud from a tome. More than one spell was on the docket for the day, it seemed. The female wizard paced a circle around the skeleton, wand at the ready, a dagger at her hip.

Another wave of dread washed over Kravitz. The specifics might be different, but the scene’s sinister familiarity—the trappings of ritual, the isolated setting, the altar—all of it disturbed him in a way that surprised him, stirred up memories he thought he’d long ago left behind.

He steeled himself yet again, and he mentally recited some of Taako’s favorite (and most blatantly plagiarized) aphorisms. Their banality, despite their pretension, never failed to amuse Kravitz.

He leaned against the doorway and settled in to watch. A spell of this magnitude would take time to cast, and he needed to catch the would-be criminals in the act in order to throw the book at them.

The hilt of a knife flashed where it hung from the man’s belt, and the cleric had a shortbow and a shield strapped to her back. Remembering his recent run-in with an enchanted sword, Kravitz cast Detect Magic. An aura appeared around the items one might expect: the cleric’s holy symbol, the wizards’ foci, the spellbook. But the mundane weapons were all just that—non-magical. The trio hadn’t been expecting interference, then, at least not from the Raven Queen’s quarter.

After a short time, the cleric stood back from her work. The other two gathered close around her, and they spoke in hushed voices—a subconscious acknowledgement of the gravity of the deed they were about to commit, most likely, rather than any fear of being overheard. Nothing in their mannerisms had indicated they had any inkling they were being watched. Their conversation made their intentions explicit, but Kravitz still needed them to take that final step before he acted.

They broke apart, and then the cleric strode over to the remains. She tossed her hood back, revealing a face on the cusp of middle-age, skin tan with dark eyes and hair. Holy object in her right hand, she set the necessary components down in front of her and placed her left hand on the wing-joint between radius and carpus which jutted nearly waist-high. She chanted the necessary words to cast Resurrection, and there she must remain for the next hour as she channeled the spell.

The two wizards flanked her in vigil, facing opposite directions, components readied for whatever next step the group had planned.

Kravitz didn’t intend to let them get that far. He had seen enough; the spell had been cast, and although it hadn’t been completed, the line allowing him to dole out punishment had been crossed. He wasn’t going to risk the spell succeeding. He could likely defeat the chimera on his own, fearsome beast though it was, but with the other three present, too much could go wrong.

Outside, the dawn had advanced enough to mottle the room with sunny patches from the many windows, and dust-motes glittered in the columns of light. It was a fine morning, chilly but clear, and a cardinal chirped somewhere nearby. The macabre spectacle inside seemed utterly incongruous.

He thought he’d try diplomacy first; it would be infinitely preferable if this situation didn’t escalate to a fight. To that end, he kept his skin on, and he held off on summoning his scythe. His overall appearance generally communicated his affiliation well enough.

Kravitz stepped into the room.

All three of his targets jumped in surprise, and the man gave a shout, but the cleric managed not to break contact with the bones, so the spell continued uninterrupted. The other woman brandished her wand in Kravitz’s direction.

Kravitz held up a hand in an attempt to prevent any rash actions. In his poshest accent (which he hoped would lend him an air of savoir-faire and encourage cooperation), he said, “Now, now, there’s no need for violence. I’m here to talk.”

“Talk about what?” the man demanded, gripping his staff with both hands.

“About this little operation you have going on here,” Kravitz said. “Where I’m from, we don’t really go in for this sort of thing, you know. Very much not allowed and all that, you understand.”

“You’re Death,” the lady wizard accused. She was the smarter of the two, clearly, or at the very least, the most perceptive.

“Charmed,” said Kravitz.

“Wait, holy shit, seriously?” the man blurted. Kravitz saw his companion roll her eyes.

“Shut up, Tomwell,” she said, then she tipped her chin upward defiantly. “Why are you here?” she demanded of Kravitz. “None of us have died.”

“No, but you have all been a little bit naughty, now, haven’t you? You’ve been dabbling in things you shouldn’t. I don’t imagine you’re trying to raise this monster here out of the goodness of your hearts. Chimeras don’t make very good pets, you know. Tough to feed, what with the three heads.”

“I’ve heard that,” she said, dry and unwilling to be baited.

“Well, then, surely you have some other mischief planned,” Kravitz retorted. “What, a whisper of Suggestion in the monster’s ear once it’s breathing again, and off it goes to do your evil bidding?”

“Nothing of the sort,” she said, but she failed her deception check.

“Let’s not lie to each other,” Kravitz said. “Look, I’m a reasonable man. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask your friend here, the one currently casting a very illegal spell, to come with me, but perhaps you other two can squeak by on a technicality. You’re still guilty of conspiring to break the laws of life and death, but you didn’t cast the spell yourselves. If you cooperate, we might be able to make a deal that you can, well, live with.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then I’ll have to insist you all three come with me.”

Tomwell paled, and he lowered his staff slightly. “Maybe we should think about it, Mayla. I don’t want to get thrown in ghost jail or something.”

Mayla looked at Tomwell, frowning, but her resolute mask was faltering, revealing a touch of doubt and fear.

Before Mayla could say anything further, the cleric broke her silence. “Idiots!” she cried. “He’s bluffing.”

“Definitely not bluffing,” Kravitz said mildly, looking at his nails in a display of nonchalance.

The cleric ignored him and continued her entreaty. “There are three of us and only one of him. We can’t give up now, not when we’ve come this far. Mayla, Tomwell, think of Trevin. Think of my son—your cousin.”

So this was a family affair, then. Kravitz supposed that was a better reason than some had for turning to necromancy, but it was still no excuse.

Tomwell still appeared frightened, but he held his staff more firmly aloft. Mayla had looked down as her aunt spoke, and now she raised her head again and looked directly at Kravitz. Hot, angry tears filled her eyes, but her expression was steely, and through gritted teeth she said, “Those bastards deserve to pay for what they did to him. Tom, Magic Circle!” With that last shouted sentence, she launched into action.

So much for diplomacy. Kravitz materialized his scythe and jumped aside, only narrowly dodging the Ray of Frost Mayla hurled at him. Out of the corner of his eye, Kravitz saw Tomwell scramble to follow his sister’s instruction and shield their aunt and her ongoing spell from Kravitz’s interference. Ignoring Mayla, Kravitz dashed toward the chimera skeleton in an attempt to disrupt the spell.

But Mayla proved to be quick and competent, and she sent a Gust of Wind toward Kravitz to keep him back. Kravitz stood strong in its force, but his forward movement was slowed. He needed to change tactics and neutralize his attacker, and then he could worry about the other two.

He sliced a portal through the air and used it to disappear and then reappear a few feet from Mayla. It felt a little like cheating, but Kravitz was a gambler, and he wasn’t above playing dirty now and again if the situation called for it. Mayla yelped and jumped backward, flinging another Ray of Frost his way, but her surprise put her at a disadvantage, and she missed again. 

Kravitz lifted his arm to swing his scythe, intending to incapacitate but not kill . . . and he found his hand empty for the second time in two weeks. _Shit._

Seeing her opportunity in the sudden shift of the power balance, Mayla recovered quickly and took advantage of Kravitz’s unarmed state. She hit him square in the chest with a Lightning Bolt, knocking him flat on his back with the wind slammed from his chest. A pile of wood that might once have been a chair ignited behind him.

Kravitz winced, feeling the damage he’d taken more than seeing it. He realized with dawning horror that his earlier sense of foreboding had not been off-base. Weaponless, without the bulk of his powers, and facing more than one hostile bounty—defeat, so foreign to him, was a very real possibility.

He wasn’t at risk of being killed, or whatever the equivalent would be for him. At least, he didn’t think so, but this whole fiasco over the last weeks had been one big question mark from the start.

Tomwell had succeeded in erecting a Magic Circle around his cleric aunt, and now he rushed to his sister’s side.

Kravitz pulled himself to his feet, stumbling a little, his limbs heavy. He felt the effects of the damage more than he normally would, which was in itself worrisome. Suddenly, he remembered an item that he’d shoved in his coat pocket on a whim that morning, and he fished it out. It was a small tin whistle, barely more than a trinket, but it would have to suffice. He held it to shaking lips and cast Thunderwave.

Neither of his opponents held their ground against the blast, surprised as they were by Kravitz’s change in tactics. Mayla shook herself and regained her feet, clutching her arm in pain. Tomwell was slower to rise, first pulling himself up to hands and knees, chest heaving, and then finally standing.

Before Kravitz could whistle another note, he was hit with a Magic Missile, his weakened physical state and unbalance from missing power severely affecting his dexterity. The whistle fell to the ground with a metallic clink. He had no time to recover before he felt the paralysis of Hold Person overtake him, and he toppled backward once more, hitting the flagstones hard.

The faces of the two wizards came into view above him, and panic washed over him when he saw that Tomwell had unsheathed his knife. His grip on the weapon white-knuckled, the man crouched beside Kravitz and stabbed. Kravitz felt the blade lodge in his ribcage before everything went black.  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to yell at/with me in the comments


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia sends a scout. Taako grades some papers. Lucas offers information.

Taako stretched, languid under the blankets and feeling more rested and relaxed than he’d been in a week or more. He and Kravitz had taken an evening to themselves the night before, and that had gone a long way toward restoring a sense of normalcy to Taako’s world, although the crisis at hand had not itself improved.

Kravitz had left for work well before dawn, slipping gingerly out of bed in an attempt not to disturb his sleeping bedmate, but Taako had awoken just enough to pull his husband in for a couple fumbling goodbye kisses before rolling over and falling back into sleep.

More than an hour had passed since, long enough for the sun to climb well above the horizon in a sky of clear blue and banish the night’s cover of frost. Taako should get up, he supposed, but he was reluctant to leave both the warmth of the bed and the illusion of order restored to the world.

In Kravitz’s absence, Cat Benatar had perched herself on his pillow, and she took the opportunity now that Taako was awake to step across and stand atop him, digging her claws into his back. Her gray tail flicked in his face and made his nose twitch.

“I get the message,” he mumbled, and he shoved her off, but he gave her a couple apologetic scratches on her head.

His stomach growled, and the threat of running out of time for a proper breakfast was enough to dislodge him from his repose. He excavated himself from beneath the mounds of blankets, and as soon as his feet touched the floor, he regretted his decision to forgo pajamas in favor of falling directly asleep after sex the night before. He scrambled for a robe, swathing himself in fluffy fabric that nearly swallowed him; it belonged to Kravitz and was therefore much too big, but it was Taako’s default choice when no one (Kravitz included) was present to call him out on sentimentality. Shoving his feet in fuzzy slippers, he headed to the stairs.

He had only made it down three steps before he heard a knock at the front door. Lup never knocked, and Taako wasn’t expecting anyone else, especially this early in the day, so the sound startled him. He scurried back upstairs to his bedroom, traded (with some reluctance) Kravitz’s robe for his own better-fitting one, and quickly cast his glamour spell. He dashed back down the stairs just as the mystery visitor knocked a second time.

“Oh, shit, sorry, did I wake you?” said Killian, eyeing Taako’s morning attire and unbrushed hair when he opened the door. Her tall, broad-shouldered frame was silhouetted against the bright sun behind her, obscuring her features.

Taako squinted up at her, partly from the harshness of the sunlight to his newly awakened eyes, but mostly from curiosity as to what brought her here. He and Killian were friends, sure, but they weren’t close like Magnus and Carey were, and her showing up unannounced on his doorstep at a quarter after eight in the morning was unprecedented. He had a hunch, though, and he braced himself to be incensed.

“Nah, I’d been up for a few minutes,” Taako said. He beckoned her inside and shut the door behind her.

They stood awkwardly in the foyer for a moment, then Killian said, “Your place looks great. Hadn’t seen it since the housewarming. You’ve fixed things up real nice.”

“Thanks,” said Taako. So they were doing the small-talk thing, huh? That only served to convince Taako further that Killian hadn’t shown up for a mere social call. “Listen, glad to see you, it’s a real pleasure and all, but do you need something? I have work in like an hour so I don’t really have time to shoot the shit, and somehow I doubt that’s why you’re here.”

Carey, as a rogue, possessed a certain degree of subtlety, but Killian did not share that trait with her wife. Still, she made an attempt. “I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop in and say hello, see how you’re doing. So, um, real weird weather we’ve been having lately, huh?”

Weird didn’t quite cover the random bouts of unseasonable and unpredictable weather Faerûn had been experiencing, like lightning strikes from a clear sky or hail in November. Killian was fishing, poorly, and Taako was ninety-nine percent sure why. “Listen, no offense, nothing personal, but you can tell your boss to fuck right off. She can send spies all she wants, but what’s going on is none of her fucking business.”

“What makes you think—” Killian feigned innocence for all of two seconds before cutting herself off and sighing in resignation, to her credit. She was nearly as bad an actor as Kravitz. “Oh, fuck it, what’s the point. I told her it wouldn’t work.”

“Let me guess: Carey is off grilling Magnus, and you were assigned to me?”

Killian nodded, sheepish. “Something like that.”

“I’m surprised _Madam Director_ didn’t send you to interrogate someone more likely to talk than me.” He spoke the title of his former boss and ex-friend with a derisive sneer.

“She said you seemed to be at the center of it, and you’re easier to find than Lup or Barry since you’re not off in the Astral Plane half the time,” Killian said, and then she frowned, ducking her head. “Look, Taako, I’m sorry. I should have said no, but it’s obvious something big is going down, and we’ve all been getting worried.”

Taako sighed, finding he didn’t have it in him to be angry with Killian; all his negative energies were too focused on Lucretia. “It’s fine. Well, not exactly _fine,_ but I don’t have any beef with you specifically. Just next time, leave the detective work to Angus and his lot and ask me what you want to know to my face. Or tell her to fuck off.”

“Fair enough. So in that case, what’s going on?”

Taako chuckled despite himself. He had to give her bonus points for tenacity. “Oh, what the hell. I guess it’s a lost cause. Magnus is going to spill what he knows to Carey anyway. Come on, I’ll give you the deets over breakfast. You hungry?”

 

“Well, fuck,” said Killian twenty minutes later around a mouthful of French toast. Her tusks bobbed as she chewed, and Taako wondered idly if that felt weird, or if you just got used to it. It certainly had to make kissing difficult (especially when your spouse had a reptilian face).

“Yeah, that sums it up pretty much.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“We don’t exactly have one at the moment other than for Barry to keep plugging away at research,” Taako admitted. “Which sucks a whole hell of a lot, but them’s the breaks. It’s like this kind of shit just follows us.”

“Anything we can do to help? You gotta know we care, right, Carey and me?”

“Yeah, I, uh, I do,” Taako said, avoiding eye contact by focusing his attention on swirling the bit of toast on his fork around in syrup. Retelling recent events had brought his anxiety back, and he wasn’t about to get emotional over breakfast right before work. “Thanks. And no, not yet, anyway.” He snorted. “Unless you want to get in on the Deputy Death Patrol. Angus had this idea where we could sort of help out on that side if things really go belly-up, but I don’t even know if the Queen would go for it.”

Killian couldn’t hide the way her eyes lit up at the prospect. “I’m not gonna lie; that sounds fucking amazing.”

“You sound like Magnus. Forgive me if under the circumstances I don’t share you two’s brutish enthusiasm,” Taako said sardonically.

Killian tipped her head in acknowledgment, her excitement quelled with the reminder of the situation’s personal impact on her friends. “Is, um, is Kravitz doing okay?” she asked, awkward and out of her depth. “I mean, like, emotionally or whatever?”

“He’s dealing,” Taako shrugged, noncommittal. “Worried, but, you know. Dealing.”

“And you?”

Nope, that was enough of that for the morning. Taako swallowed one last bite of toast and stood up from the table, stacking dishes in a clear display of terminating the conversation. “Listen, neither of us is the heart-to-heart type, so let’s not fucking pretend we are. Thanks for your concern and all, but I’ve gotta get to work.”

Killian nodded, and she stood to take her own dishes to the sink. “You guys just let us know if you need anything, okay? We’re happy to help.”

“Will do. And hey, um, I know you’ve gotta report in and all, give the boss-lady the bare bones at least, but could you maybe not tell her about Kravitz specifically? Or me? I don’t—I don’t want her sympathy.” Lucretia was smart, and Taako knew she was going to put two and two together anyway, but somehow it made him feel better to know she wouldn’t get the satisfaction of hearing anything about him or his family directly.

For a moment, Killian looked like she wanted to argue, but she thought better of it. “Sure thing, Taako.” She gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder, which, from her, was always just this side of too hard. Taako rubbed said shoulder, but Killian didn’t seem to notice. “Thanks for the food. I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Sure. You guys should come to dinner sometime when the world’s not ending.”

“We’d love to. See you, Taako. I’ll let myself out.”

“Cool. Bye.”

 

Thanks to his unexpected caller, Taako showed up to his first class ten minutes late, hair pulled into a messy ponytail and only dry because Prestidigitation was a thing. His students were used to him being a few minutes late, but this was more than usual, and they eyed him curiously. He offered no excuse or apology, though—he was Taako from TV, after all, and they didn’t get to complain when they had the privilege of studying under him.

He made it through his classes without incident, but he was glad when he was done. Gone was the feeling of ease he’d had upon waking, and he was impatient and snappish with his students. He wasn’t known for being gentle with them and rarely tempered his speech—they were in his classes to learn from a master, and if they wanted to be coddled, they could go elsewhere. But they were still children, and he tried not to let himself cross that line between tough and unkind.

After dismissing his second class, Taako retreated to his office. Ren looked up from her desk and watched him plod by, a tiny crease marring her smooth obsidian brow, but she let him pass without comment. They’d been partners long enough for her to know when to ask and when to leave him be. Over the last week, the latter had become the norm.

Safely shut in his office, Taako slumped into his chair and leaned back, sticking his booted feet on the desk. He took a moment to simply breathe. A growing feeling of things being further amiss had nagged at him since he stepped foot outside his house earlier. The reprieve of the previous night now felt like a trick, like whatever entity had it out for Taako and those he cared about had wanted to taunt him by dangling something like hope in front of his nose before snatching it away once more.

He gave himself a few minutes, and then he reeled his thoughts back in and put his feet back on the floor. The stack of papers on his desk would distract him, hopefully.

His two classes were scheduled back-to-back so that he could use his afternoons for grading, lesson planning (when he felt like it), and brand management. The Taako name remained a hot commodity, and he was happy to slap it on anything that fit his style and sounded like it might be successful. He’d spent the first few years after the Hunger’s defeat largely on the media circuit, but more recently, he’d found he wanted a break from the touring lifestyle, so he’d taken on actual full-semester teaching duties where before he had limited himself to demonstrations and special lectures.

He’d grown more attached than he’d ever thought possible to the comfort and stability of calling a single place home, a place that belonged to him (and his husband) and no one else. He’d never thought he was someone who would fall prey to the lure of domesticity, but here he was, going home every night to a house full of cats, cooking meals for two, caring about things like furniture and paint and nosy neighbors, falling asleep in a bed that wasn’t a bunk beside a man he loved—a man who loved him back with an intensity that still took Taako’s breath away even after years together.

Taako would return to the media circuit at some point, undoubtedly, but for now, he was content. They had centuries ahead of them, after all. Or at least, they were supposed to.

He forced himself to focus on his work, and for a while he was successful. An investor in Goldcliff had recently proposed opening a second campus of Taako’s Amazing School of Magic, and they’d signed the papers to move ahead with it about a month back. Ren had dropped a set of blueprints on Taako’s desk for him to autograph with his approval, and he looked those over first. Most of it was fine; he didn’t care about such things as classroom layouts and hallway dimensions, but he jotted a few notes in the margins, such as ‘Where’s the dueling arena? Got to have a dueling arena: This is non-negotiable,’ and ‘The cafeteria kitchen MUST have only top-of-the-line equipment. Cut costs elsewhere.’ He stuck the blueprints in his outbox for the revisions to be made before he signed off on them.

Word of the second campus had gotten out, and they’d already received a first wave of applicants wanting teaching positions. Taako glanced over several of the résumés, but of the half-dozen or so, all but two got tossed in the trash. He set the two aside to have Ren schedule interviews. As for the others, he reluctantly fished them out of the trash after a moment of thought, knowing that the PR-minded Ren would likely want to give them a courtesy thanks-but-no-thanks response.

That accomplished, he turned to his grading. He breezed through a batch of quizzes from Intro to Transmutation, and he pursed his lips with annoyance at the plethora of red ink marks on a few of them after he was done. Hopeless, some of these kids were. It was his personal opinion that at least three of them shouldn’t be allowed to even hold a wand. But their parents were paying the tuition, so Taako would do what he could, but he was a wizard, not a miracle-worker.

The kids in Innovative Magic were a delight, however, which in Taako’s language meant they were a snarky, insolent, and irreverent bunch with minds that twisted and turned in ways both creative and devious. Taako had presented them with a hypothetical scenario a couple days before, and they’d been assigned to write how they would get out of it within the rather extreme limitations of spell slots and equipment Taako had set.

One kid, a clever gnome boy named Lenneth, had come up with a particularly unique solution, one step of which involved a carefully placed stone rigged to fall when a door opened and a simple but perfectly timed use of Enlarge. Taako actually chuckled when he read that, and he had to admit it was quite an effective way to put the ogre guarding the door out of commission while avoiding a fight. That boy was going places.

Taako broke for a late lunch after that, scooting over to a little café he frequented that was only a few blocks from campus. Occasionally, he’d eat in the school’s cafeteria—he had to make sure the food remained up to standard, after all—but he wasn’t in the mood for the buzz of students around him today, even though the lunch rush would be over by now. It was less fun to make an appearance there these days anyway; the kids were less starry-eyed when they spotted him now that a number of them had taken one of his classes.

When he returned to his office, he’d barely settled in to work on lesson plans when someone knocked on his door. Ren entered immediately after, not waiting for a response.

“Sorry to bother you,” she said, biting her lip in an uncharacteristic display of uncertainty, “but I’ve got a call for you that I think you’re gonna want to take.”

“Who is it?” Taako asked. This day was just full of unusual circumstances, apparently. Ren fielded the vast majority of calls and visits, and it was rare she bothered Taako with them, no matter how insistent the person was about talking to Taako himself.

“Well, it’s, um, it’s Lucas.”

 _“Lucas?”_ Taako repeated, pulling a disgusted face. “What makes you think I want to talk to _Lucas Fucking Miller?”_

Normally, this was where Ren would roll her eyes and tell him to get over himself, but today she simply frowned, serious. “Just trust me, Taako. He said he had some information and that it was important. I don’t know for sure, but I think it could be about—well, you know, the _situation._ So yeah, I think you do actually want to talk to him.”

For a moment, Taako’s greed for even the tiniest shred of a lead overwhelmed him and eclipsed his dislike for Lucas. His heart thumped in his ears, and a prickle of anticipation raced across his skin. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

Ren just nodded, and she stepped back to her own desk to retrieve her Stone of Farspeech. She set it down on Taako’s desk. “Lucas, I’ve got Taako right here. I’ll let you two speak privately.”

“Thanks, Ren,” came Lucas’s voice over the stone. “Taako?”

“‘Sup, Nerd Lord,” said Taako.

“Still don’t—I still don’t appreciate that name, thought maybe you could be at least a little civil when I’m offering you information free of charge, out of the goodness of my very generous heart.”

Yeah, any fleeting charity Taako had felt for Lucas dissolved instantly upon hearing that prissy, self-righteous tone. This guy was the actual worst. “Okay, _Lucas—_ that _is_ your name, right? I deal with so _many_ losers on a day-to-day, you’ll have to forgive me. They all sort of run together—”

“Go to hell, Taako.”

“Yeah, my hubby pretty much runs the place, so that’s not really much of a—”

“Okay, you know what? Maybe I’ll just keep this info to myself, sounds like you don’t—”

“No!” Taako exclaimed, barely able to veil his desperation. It was so easy to get carried away with trash-talking this dude, but Taako needed to remember what was important here, and he wasn’t about to risk losing the only hint of a new lead they’d had. “No, I do want to hear it. We got off to a bad start here. Let’s just move on, okay? What have you got?”

“Fine,” Lucas huffed. “Okay, so, you know planar studies have always been my focus. After the Hunger, whole new worlds and possibilities opened up, and the barriers between the systems became thinner in places. I’ve been working to map out those spaces, to calculate where they lead, so that when our scientific community is ready to attempt our own interplanar expeditions, we’ll have some data to work with. By studying the Starblaster’s bond engine, we’ve been able to replicate bond technology, and hopefully within the next year or two, we’ll have a vessel ready for interplanar travel. So the work I’m doing is really important so that we won’t be completely flying blind, so to speak—”

Taako interrupted, growing impatient. “Listen, I know what’s popping off in the science world; I subscribe to all the journals—hell, I’m published in a few of ‘em. Remember me, Resident Arcanist for the IPRE? I’m pretty sure I know more about bond energy and interplanar travel than you do, so can you maybe get to your point?”

“I mean, you don’t have to brag—”

“Like you weren’t just bragging.”

“—but sure, fine, here’s the point. I was studying one of those thin spots—nearly a rift, in fact, which caught my attention since it made me wonder if it had been purposely opened—and one of my instruments picked up on a weird energy signature. I’ve calculated it every possible way, and Taako, every test tells me it’s bond energy.”

“Are you sure?” Taako asked. If that was true, it opened up a whole new line of research. If some rogue individual or group had the technology for interplanar travel, the coincidence of timing was too great not to assume a connection with this sickness afflicting Faerûn’s gods. It meant they could be facing an actual enemy as opposed to a nebulous, impersonal contagion.

“Why would I lie about this? Unless someone’s been taking the Starblaster for joyrides recently, we have to assume some mystery person out there has bond tech. They’d make a fortune if they came forward with it, so I don’t know why anyone would keep that a secret unless they had some nefarious plans in the works.”

“Yeah, that, uh, that tracks. Unfortunately. So why come to me with this? We’re not exactly friends.”

“The weird shit that’s been going on lately hasn’t escaped me, and I wondered if there might be a connection. Much as it galls me, this might be beyond the scope of my knowledge. I talked to Lucretia yesterday after I first made the discovery, but she didn’t know what was going on. But she said you and the others might. You do know something, don’t you? Are we—is the world in danger again, Taako?”

“Nope, no danger here,” Taako said without much effort to be convincing in the lie. “Everything’s peachy.”

Lucas sighed loudly. “You don’t have to tell me what’s up, but you don’t have to lie.”

“What do you want me to say? Obviously something’s up. Bit of a power issue within the pantheon, but you’ve already figured that out, I’m sure. I don’t have answers. I don’t even know if what you’ve told me is connected. But we’re working on it.”

“Fair enough. I guess let me know if there’s anything I can do? I’m not too keen on getting mixed up in another apocalypse, but the world ending isn’t in my best interests either.”

“Thanks, Lucas,” Taako said, then he wrinkled his nose. “Boy howdy, that’s a bad mouthfeel. I hope you appreciate what a bad mouthfeel that is to say.”

“You’re welcome? I guess? God, you’re such an asshole.”

“Your face is an asshole.” Okay, so that wasn’t his best burn, but it wasn’t his worst either, and it would have to suffice.

“Whatever,” Lucas grumbled. “See if I help you again.”

“Fine. Thank you. No insults, no strings attached, just thanks. Ugh. Satisfied? The last thing I want is to feel like I owe _you_ of all people.”

“I thought you said no insults!”

“I tried. Alas, I am but mortal. Take it or leave it.”

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna leave it, and you can just owe me. Okay bye!” And then Lucas disconnected before Taako could have the satisfaction of ending the call himself.

Taako glared at the stone, gone quiet and still. He had rarely felt a more disparate set of emotions, torn between his intense dislike of his odious and obnoxious magic school–rival and a budding sense of realization that this might be the breakthrough for which he’d longed. He couldn’t begin to fathom what the information meant, but it couldn’t be coincidence. Either way, it was a new direction, and it felt like hope.

He gathered his things in a flash and left work early, hurrying to get home so he could contact the others with the news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I adored hearing everyone holler about last week's cliffhanger. Sincere apologies to anyone who thought it would be resolved this week. Next week for sure. Thanks for hanging in there!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup berates her brother-in-law. Kravitz contemplates his reflection. The crew come to a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: More allusions to Kravitz’s past death. Mention of off-screen violence.

Kravitz awoke slowly, as though wading through deep water, to the sound of his name being called. Taako? No, that wasn’t quite right. Lup, it must be Lup. Kravitz focused his attention on the voice and dragged himself back to consciousness. He blinked his eyes open, squinting in a bright ray of sun.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Lup said, and beside her, Barry exhaled in relief.

“What happened?” asked Kravitz.

“I think we should be asking you that question, bud,” said Barry.

“Yeah, so we just killed a chimera,” Lup added. “You wanna tell us what the hell that was about?”

“Shit,” Kravitz said, his memory of the disastrous hunt coming back to him all at once. “I mean, I’m glad you took care of it, thanks, but I didn’t want it to come to that.”

“Nasty son-of-a-bitch, but we got him,” said Barry. “So are we just not going to talk about the knife sticking out of your chest right now, or what?”

Kravitz looked down and saw that he did indeed still have a knife lodged in his chest. It had been excruciating when it happened, but now, he could barely feel it. “Huh,” he said.

_“‘Huh’?”_ echoed Lup, incredulous. “You have a _knife_ in your _chest.”_

“Yes, thank you, I’m aware,” said Kravitz sarcastically. “I’d almost forgotten I was stabbed. I’m okay.”

“You didn’t look okay when we found you,” Barry said. “You were out cold, and there was a hell of a lot of blood.”

“It was just an ordinary, enchantment-free knife; I checked. It shouldn’t have been able to hurt me at all, but they got me when the power was out.”

“Had to hurt like a motherfucker though,” said Lup.

Kravitz shrugged. “Didn’t feel great, but I’m good now. I’m intimately familiar with having a knife in my chest, unfortunately. This is nothing.”

Lup gave him a piercing look, but she didn’t press him to explain. He was relieved. The event that had set him on his current career path, that shattering tragedy brought about by his own naïveté, was known only to the Raven Queen and Taako. It wasn’t so much that Kravitz was opposed to Barry or Lup knowing, but he had dredged up old wounds once to share his history with Taako, and he didn’t relish the thought of doing it again. Now wasn’t the time for it, anyway.

Kravitz reached down to grip the haft of the knife and jerked it free before he could psych himself out about it. There was a moment of sharp pain that made him gasp, but then it was over, and the flesh of his construct knit back together as he watched. He tossed the weapon aside in disgust, then he sat up.

Lup watched with furrowed brows, and then she said, “Okay, so, if you’re sure you’re fine—”

“I’m sure.”

“—then can we get back to the question of _what the hell happened?”_

Kravitz took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, steeling himself. “This one’s on me, guys. Or at least, mostly. I shouldn’t have come alone.” Pride might have been Kravitz’s biggest vice, but at least he could admit to his mistakes. He proceeded to give Barry and Lup the run-down of the morning’s events.

“That was some spectacularly bad timing, bud,” said Barry.

“No fucking kidding,” said Kravitz morosely. “Seems to be a trend for me lately. So I guess after they got me, or thought they did, they finished up the spell and sent the chimera off. Did you find them too? Have they been taken in?”

“Seems like the chimera took care of that for us,” said Lup. “See for yourself.” She gestured across the room, and it was only then that Kravitz noticed the further destruction in the interior of the temple . . . and the bodies that lay mangled in the rubble.

“Oh,” said Kravitz, feeling a vague sense of sorrow that things had ended so violently for these people, but only a vague sense. One of them had stabbed him, after all. Whatever spell they had planned to subdue or control the chimera must have backfired. Tomwell’s body, identifiable only by his clothing and the staff jutting out of the rubble next to him, was lying face down about ten yards away, his back torn and bloodied. His aunt, recognizable from her dark cloak, lay not far from him, a twisted heap of limbs. “But wait, I only see two bodies. What about the third, the younger woman?”

Barry shrugged. “No sign of her. She must have gotten away. We killed the chimera a couple miles from here. The other two were already dead when we arrived here looking for you. We collected their souls, and they came quietly.”

“Good,” Kravitz said. “At least that’s over.”

“Do we need to go after her?” asked Lup.

“No, let her be,” Kravitz said. “She’s paying already. This was a family thing, and I don’t think any of them had connections with any dark magic orders or anything. Either it scares her straight, or she goes into full revenge mode, but I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“Your call, man, you’re the boss,” said Barry.

Kravitz fell silent for a moment, wanting to ask the big question but dreading the answer. “So, Istus now too, huh?” he finally ventured.

“Bingo,” said Lup, and then she leveled him with a barbed look. “The Queen sent us to find you after it happened, since you were on the job and no one could reach you. Because, you know, you had to be a big fucking hero and go alone, since you’re so clearly better than the rest of us. Fucking _idiot.”_

Kravitz didn’t reprimand her or protest. He deserved to be chewed out this time, and he knew it. “I know, Lup. I was stupid and arrogant. Sorry I made you worry. And sorry you had to clean up my mess.”

“Kravitz, if you hadn’t just been injured, I would punch you right in that infuriatingly handsome face of yours.”

“I’m literally right here,” Barry grumbled.

“Barry J. Bluejeans, I love you with my entire heart, but there is no world in which he is not more of a stud than you are.”

Barry considered a moment and then shrugged. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair. I can live with that.”

Kravitz ignored their banter and grimaced, giving a humorless, self-deprecating chuckle. “If I hadn’t just been injured, I’d let you. This one’s on me for sure. Me and my own damn hubris.”

“Maybe you ought to try taking your own goddamn advice for once,” Lup spat. She was on a roll now. The virulence of her tirade exposed how deeply worried she had been, but that didn’t make it any more pleasant to be on the receiving end. “Everyone _else_ should go in pairs, but Mr. Big Shot Grim Reaper is apparently above the rules. I swear to Jeffandrew, Kravitz, that if you ever make me have to tell my brother that something happened to you, I will haunt your fucking ghost.”

“That’s not—that’s not how _any_ of this works.”

“I don’t know, buddy, my money would be on her finding a way,” Barry said.

If anyone could, Lup could, Kravitz supposed. “You’re right, Lup. I’m really sorry. So can we maybe not tell Taako about this?” he pleaded. “He’s been so worried and stressed, and I’m fine now, so maybe we could just, I don’t know, not tell him?”

Lup locked eyes with him for a moment, her gaze intense. “You’re a big boy, Skeletor,” she said, the nickname an offering of truce. “I’m not gonna tell you what to do, but do you want him to stop trusting you? Because this is how you get him to stop trusting you.”

She had a point. For obvious reasons, one of Taako’s biggest hang-ups was people keeping secrets from him. “You’re right,” Kravitz sighed. “Again. I just hate to see him upset. Maybe I won’t go into exact details, but I’ll tell him. He deserves my honesty.”

“Good boy,” Lup said, and then she rose, offering him a hand. He accepted gratefully and stood, pleased to find that other than a being a little sore and stiff, he felt back to his usual self.

Barry stood also, but then he stooped to pick up something. He handed Kravitz the tin whistle that had fallen nearby.

“Really?” Lup teased.

“I had to improvise.”

“What did you do, charm the local rats out of their holes to nibble on your bounties’ toes, Mr. Pied Piper?”

“That’s not—I’m—that’s not a _great_ goof, but whatever. It’s a perfectly viable instrument.”

She rolled her eyes, but she smiled at him. “Come on, goofus, let’s get out of here.”

 

Later that afternoon, Kravitz returned home. With Istus now compromised, the Raven Queen had ordered a temporary suspension of all bounty hunting, although, by necessity, soul collection would continue as usual. Kravitz had stuck around for some damage control, but at this point, everyone pretty much knew what the protocols were, so it wasn’t as big of a mess as the last times. With little further he could do, the Queen sent him home to rest until she determined how to move forward.

Purrsace greeted Kravitz when he stepped through the portal into the entryway, and Kravitz scooped up the cat and nuzzled him, prattling nonsense into his fur. Purrsace, choosy beast that he was, allowed such handling from his favorite person and rumbled deep in his belly, content.

Taako hadn’t returned from work yet, so Kravitz trudged up the stairs with the cat still in his arms. He released Purrsace onto the bed, and he started to remove his outerwear and accessories so he could change out of his bloodied clothes. He moved slowly, distractedly, his thoughts troubled.

He was worried, of course, about what it would mean for the world now that Istus had also fallen ill, but that wasn’t all that was on his mind. He had insisted to Lup and Barry that he was fine, and he was, physically. He was still shaken, however, by how vividly the morning’s events—especially the way they had culminated—had recalled terrors to his mind that he’d thought had long ago lost their potency.

It was so long ago, now—lifetimes, in every sense of the word.

He caught sight of his own reflection in the full-length mirror and turned to face it fully, scrutinizing. It felt, somehow, like he was seeing himself differently, really looking at himself in a way he hadn’t in ages.

Kravitz was a half-elf from a long line of half-elves, the sort of heritage where he couldn’t say exactly what percentage of each he was. All anyone from his village had known was that several centuries before his birth, a caravan of drow had passed through the area, fleeing oppression in their homeland. Many had stayed and intermingled with the humans who farmed the nearby lands. Possibly, Kravitz had trace blood of several other races, from far back in his family tree.

To any observer, he appeared as a typical half-elf, taller and broader of shoulder than the average elf but lean and lithe, ears modestly pointed. His dark skin was inherited from both sides of his ancestry, though its warm, coffee-brown tone owed more to the human blood and lacked the grayish tint typical of drow. Any other racial influence was not visible, unless it was in the glint of gold in his brown eyes (when they weren’t reaper-red), or in his slightly-sharper-than-usual canines.

The face that looked back at him was not exactly the same as the one with which he’d died. That face had still possessed a freshness of youth, an innocence, that didn’t quite fit him now. It hadn’t in a long time. He had been hardly more than a boy when death had found him, but his appearance now was that of a man, still in his prime, but well into his adult years.

Kravitz had a vain streak, it was true, and he enjoyed grooming and accessorizing and dressing well, but it was happy coincidence that the face in the mirror was a handsome one. He wouldn’t have changed his features for anything, because they were the only image that remained to him of his father. In fact, aging his appearance had only served to heighten the resemblance.

He could not recall his mother’s face at all. He had been too young when she died, and the hazy memories of her he had carried into adulthood had long since been lost to time.

He had not thought of either of them in so long, he realized with a pang of regret. He wished they could have met Taako. He wished his father, who had grieved his only child deeply, could see how happy Kravitz was now, even though it had been a long and unusual road that had brought him to this joy.

Kravitz refused to let that joy end so soon.

Speaking of Taako, Kravitz heard sounds of someone downstairs just as he was finishing changing into more comfortable clothes. “Taako? Babe, is that you?” he called.

“Oh, hey, Krav!” came the response, followed by quick and indelicate footsteps on the stairs. Taako burst into the room, his body taut with energy. “Good, you’re home early!”

“So are you,” said Kravitz. With a touch of dread, he thought he should probably get it over with and tell Taako about his day, but before he could start, Taako spoke again, the words tumbling out in a breathless jumble.

“Listen, so I got this super weird call today, from fucking _Lucas_ of all people, and, I don’t know, it—it might be nothing, might not be connected at all, so I don’t wanna, like, get your hopes up too much, don’t wanna jump to conclusions or anything, but—” he took a deep breath, steadying himself. “But it might be a lead.”

 

The next day, Kravitz sat beside Taako at their crowded dining room table while Taako related Lucas’s information to a group that had grown since their last meeting. Besides the addition of Kravitz himself, Carey and Killian had also joined the former crew members and Angus. Lucretia, however, remained absent.

When Taako had called for this second meeting, several of the others had tried again to broach the subject of bringing Lucretia into the mix, but Taako still wouldn’t consider it. He didn’t want her in his house, he said. To satisfy the others, he suggested instead that Carey and Killian join them, since they now had some knowledge of the situation, and they could then pass along any crucial information to Lucretia. Taako would concede nothing further, so the others had sighed and agreed.

Kravitz was glad, to be perfectly honest. He could, objectively, understand why Lucretia had made the choices she had, and he didn’t think she had ever intended to harm her compatriots. But she had harmed them nonetheless, Taako not least among them. Kravitz found it difficult to keep his own opinions about her neutral when he was so intimately acquainted with the depth of Taako’s damage.

Kravitz may not have been able to relate to the exact situation the crew had experienced, but he knew how betrayal felt; he knew the sting of a knife, (both figurative and literal, in his case), twisted in one’s heart by a once-beloved hand. He knew better than any of the others, even Lup, what betrayal had done to Taako.

Only rarely would Kravitz venture to make such a claim: He had made peace early on with the fact that there were ways in which he could never compete with Lup in Taako’s heart. Lup and Taako had a bond that Kravitz could never hope to sever or surpass, and he would never want to do either, because their bond was a beautiful and sacred thing.

They were alike in many ways, but in other—perhaps more fundamental—ways, they were two very different people. Lup forgave easily (at least when the offender was someone she cared about that didn’t owe her fifteen dollars), and Taako did not; where Lup could let a slight roll off her back, Taako would internalize it. They knew this about each other, of course, but knowledge did not guarantee true understanding.

Taako and Lup had spent most of those first days after their reunion and even a few of those first nights in each other’s company, but eventually, they had to return to a semblance of normality. Lup, after all, had Barry, and although neither Barry nor Kravitz would have begrudged the twins whatever time they needed together, Lup and Barry had needed each other as well.

So Kravitz, not Lup, had been the one to hold Taako in the aftermath of the Hunger’s defeat, in the weeks, the months, the years that followed when Taako would wake in the middle of the night crying and shaking. Sometimes he didn’t know where he was—or, on a few of the worst occasions, who he was; sometimes he called out for Lup or Barry or Magnus or the others in his sleep, afraid he had lost them again—whether they were taken from him or he was abandoned by them, Kravitz couldn’t say. Sometimes from within his dreams Taako would blubber a broken string of apologies, most often to the victims from Glamour Springs, because knowing he was absolved didn’t immediately erase years of deeply held guilt.

And Taako had grieved Lucretia. The girl he’d once loved like a sister was gone, and the woman that bore her name was not the same person. Taako had to keep them separate in his mind lest he go crazy, or so he had said once. The Lucretia that Taako had known and loved was dead to him, a casualty of the Relic Wars, and he had wept for her. Kravitz had seen it, and he’d held him through his mourning.

Consequently, Kravitz was unsure how he would feel to encounter Lucretia face-to-face again; he feared he would struggle to remain civil. He wished, for Taako’s sake, that the two could one day be reconciled, but unless Taako himself expressed a change of heart, Kravitz would never push the matter. If Taako never forgave Lucretia, Kravitz would understand and not judge him for it.

Taako had completed his report, and other voices were speaking now, so Kravitz dragged himself out of his wandering thoughts and focused his attention back on the meeting.

“Are you certain we can trust Lucas was telling the truth?” Davenport asked. “I admit I have little use for the man.” He scowled, mustache twitching, and Kravitz wondered how rude and dismissive Lucas must have been to Davenport while he had been in Lucretia’s charge.

“I’m not a fan either,” Kravitz agreed.

“He’s the fucking worst,” Killian said emphatically.

“I’m still not over him using slave labor in his lab,” Carey added.

“He was using _what?”_ Kravitz demanded, incredulous. How had he missed that particular detail? Suddenly Taako’s vehement dislike of the man made even more sense.

“Yep, slave labor. That creep had a whole clan of brainwashed bugbears up in that place. We got ‘em out.”

“Fucking hell,” Kravitz swore. “If I’d have known that, I don’t think I’d have let him off the hook. I’d have dragged his ass with me and thrown him in the Stockade.”

“Babe, listen,” Taako said. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to think about it seriously before you answer. Are you absolutely certain it’s too late to reinstate his bounty?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Aw, dunk,” said Taako.

“I don’t like the squirrelly bastard much either,” said Merle. “I mean, it was because he went and used the Philosopher’s Stone that Magnus had to chop off my arm.”

Kravitz felt several sets of eyes cut over to him at that, but he stared steadfastly ahead and tried not to squirm. In all the times he’d been around Merle over the years, he’d heard Merle blame Magnus for the loss of his arm plenty of times, but he’d never once said a word about Kravitz’s part in that affair. Kravitz wasn’t sure if Merle was simply that forgetful or if it was just some weird inside joke between him and Magnus, but no one ever laughed, so Kravitz tended to think it was the former. Either way, he assumed it was in his best interests not to question it.

“I saved your life!” Magnus protested, as usual. “But look, guys. I hate Lucas about as much as the rest of you—”

“Doubtful,” Taako muttered.

“—but the guy did give us some useful information. So maybe we should actually talk about that information?”

“I’m with Magnus on this one,” Lup chimed in. “I’ll totally host a Lucas-bashing party for when this whole thing is over; we’ll play Pin the Tail on the Lucas and whack some Lucas-shaped piñatas, it’ll be rad, but right now we need to focus.”

“So what do we _do_ with the information?” asked Kravitz. “I understand the implications, but how does it help?”

“I guess I can get with Lucas and see if we can track whatever left the energy signature,” said Barry dubiously, sounding distinctly less than thrilled at the prospect. “But to be frank, I’ve got my hands pretty full with the data comparisons from the other planar system, not to mention my job.”

“No,” sighed Davenport. “No, we need you to keep focusing on the data sets, Barry. We’re going off pure conjecture at all points here, so we don’t need to abandon any possibilities, especially not one with as many parallels as that one. I’ll get with Lucas myself. And while I’m at it, I’ll attempt to triangulate the other system, just in case.”

“You think it will come to that, sir?” asked Angus. “Traveling there, I mean?”

“I sure hope not,” said Davenport. “But I’d rather be prepared anyway. Barry, have you made any progress on the data?”

“Some, but not as much as I’d like,” said Barry glumly. “The Queen and Istus were gracious enough to let me take some samples directly from them, but I need a control. Their physiological makeup is too different from a mortal’s for me to know exactly what I’m looking at, especially on a molecular level, and biology was never my focus anyway. I’m going to see if they can hook me up with one of the gods who hasn’t shown symptoms yet. Since I obviously don’t have samples from the other system’s gods, that’s the next best thing.

“I’ve also collected atmospheric samples from our Transitive Planes in case it’s an airborne contagion. My money’s on that, honestly, just from the way this has spread. Initial tests have shown some foreign bodies, but I’ll need to continue studying them to say for sure.”

Kravitz was no scientist, and Barry’s rambling, although it hadn’t gotten too technical, had still been a bit lost on Kravitz. He glanced around and noticed Killian’s and Carey’s eyes were glazed over too. “Just to clarify,” said Kravitz, “if you can positively identify a contagion, you’ll then try to find a cure?”

Barry nodded. “Or a vaccine. Preferably both. But I’m nowhere close to that yet, and there’s no way to predict how long it might take.”

“Well, that’s something anyway,” said Davenport. “Just keep at it. I wish you could work on it full-time, but I know you have other duties.”

Lup cleared her throat. “About that,” she said. “So, what with Istus being off her game now too, that puts us in a bit of a jam over in the bone zone. Maybe it’s time we follow through with Angus’s plan and see about bringing some of you on as deputy reapers.”

“Um, hold on a sec, we should do _what_ now?” asked Kravitz, his eyebrows threatening to levitate off his face. Normally, he would express his distaste for Lup’s term for the Astral Plane (he let a lot slide, but really, ‘the bone zone’ was pushing it), but he was too flabbergasted by the rest of her words. “What the hell did I miss?”

“Oofa doofa,” said Taako, scrunching up his face like he’d just broken something valuable with an errant spell. “Listen, babe, I wasn’t going to tell you until it became relevant, but Angus had this idea . . .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't give me that look. I did say the knife was just an ordinary knife in the chapter where Kravitz got stabbed. But I'm sure he appreciates your concern for his well-being. <3
> 
> Also, a status update: At the moment my outline has us sitting at twenty-three chapters, and I have a feeling that will grow to at least twenty-five. We're not even halfway through, folks, so buckle in. We've got a ways to go and plenty of time for shit to really hit the fan.
> 
> As usual, feel free to ramble at me in the comments (I'll love you forever). Find me on tumblr as terene.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kravitz is grumpy. The Raven Queen is down to clown. Taako has a heart-to-heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to be posting this chapter later in the day than usual. I have a convention this coming weekend, and I've been in crunch mode.
> 
> CW: Brief mention of Lup being trans and one of the physical implications of that. (It’s brought up on her terms and not in the sense of someone outing her.)

Meeting the Raven Queen for the first time had been an Experience, the exact halfway point between meeting your in-laws and meeting the shadow that lurks just out of sight in your nightmares—the opposite ends of a spectrum where both extremes were terrifying, but in very different ways.

Taako had met the Raven Queen enough times now that he had grown, if not comfortable, at least unafraid in her presence. But still, the shadow of that original terror flared in him, just for a second, any time he first caught sight of her after a time away.

Today was likely to be no exception.

It was silly, he knew—the Queen _liked_ him, he was certain, or so Kravitz had told him on several occasions. She liked that he made Kravitz happy; she herself had told him that when they got married. Whenever Taako spoke with her, they had a good rapport. But ultimately, she was still the goddess of death, and her aura was like the torment of having answers to eternity’s unanswerable questions within your grasp but knowing that opening your mind to them would break you.

Plus, any nerves Taako might have had under normal circumstances were exacerbated by the fact that he was expected to play liaison for the rest of their group and pitch a crazy idea to the Queen that, for all he knew, might offend or anger her. Sure, he’d have Kravitz, Lup, and Barry with him, but that guaranteed nothing, other than that she wouldn’t kill him. Probably.

He was a little salty that the job had fallen to him when it hadn’t even been his idea. Any one of the three reapers could have made the proposal without him, but the group had decided that having at least one mortal present was important. Taako was the logical choice, being the only one of them with something like security clearance. Being married to the Grim Reaper did come with some perks.

It didn’t help Taako’s anxiousness that Kravitz was somewhat less than enthused about the idea. He’d been taciturn all morning, broody and cross. Taako knew well what pride Kravitz placed in his role, in his position in the Queen’s court, and having his ability to do his job compromised enough to necessitate deputizing some mortals had to be quite a blow to his ego.

Truthfully, Taako himself had struggled with the decision—not that there was any question that he would participate. Kravitz (and the fate of the world) came first, but Taako felt guilty for abandoning his students for the foreseeable future. Ren would find a suitable substitute, but no substitute was Taako from TV.

Taako and Kravitz had had words the night before—not a fight, exactly, but near enough that neither had gone to bed in the best of moods. Kravitz had been upset that Taako hadn’t told him before about Angus’s idea, which was fair, Taako had to admit. He’d avoided the conversation knowing full well it would come back to bite him. But then Kravitz had told Taako about the debacle with the chimera resurrection, and it had been Taako’s turn to be mad (and frightened, but that fear had manifested as anger at Kravitz for his recklessness).

Acknowledging that they were even, they’d called a truce, and both had promised to do better in the future. But Kravitz wasn’t his usual self this morning, and Taako could tell he was unhappy.

Taako also had a troubling suspicion that Kravitz wasn’t feeling well. He was certain, in fact; he’d seen and heard the signs, though Kravitz had made effort to hide it. But Taako couldn’t let himself get distracted by the implications of that right now. They’d address it later.

These were the thoughts that raced through Taako’s head as he trailed behind Kravitz through the halls of the Raven Queen’s palatial headquarters. He had to trot to keep up with his husband’s long strides, and that too was unusual. Every time Taako had visited the Astral Plane in the past, Kravitz had held his hand or put an arm around him, delighted both to show him around and show him off. Today, Kravitz was focused, and he apparently had no time for sentiment.

They entered the antechamber leading to the throne room, where they had planned to rendezvous with Lup and Barry, and they found the duo awaiting them. Barry fidgeted, but Lup looked as collected as ever, leaning against a wall, arms and ankles casually crossed.

Lup shoved away from the wall, straightening. “Show time, boys. Everyone ready?”

The others gave various nods and hums of assent. Barry placed a hand on the ornate surface of the heavy door, and he pushed, holding it open for his companions.

“Let’s get this damn thing over with,” Kravitz muttered, and then he strode forward into the room.

Lup caught Taako’s gaze and raised an eyebrow. He shrugged, a gesture not of ignorance to the problem but inability to do anything about it. He’d fill Lup in later. For now, he scurried to catch up with Kravitz, and Lup and Barry followed.

 

True to his prediction, as Taako stepped foot into the throne room, his heart Blinked right out of his chest for a couple beats before it returned to its proper location. The Raven Queen sat on her throne upon the dais, and her incomprehensible form so fully captivated Taako’s attention that for a moment, he didn’t even notice Istus, the antithesis of her companion in nearly every way.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” the Queen asked. “You are always welcome in my realm, Taako, but unless I miss my guess, you have not come to make a social call.”

“No, he did not,” agreed Istus. “I believe they have a proposition for us.”

That was the trouble with goddesses. You never knew how much they knew and how much they were just pretending not to know.

“Hail and well met and stuff, always, uh, always glad to be here,” Taako babbled, voice popping wildly. “Yeah, no, you’re totally right, not here for a potluck or something, see we’ve got this, well, Angus came up with this sort of a plan, and, and, I don’t know if you’ll go for it, but we think it might work . . .” Taako clamped his mouth shut, embarrassed. He didn’t usually ramble quite that badly, but damn it, he was nervous about this whole thing. “Look, maybe someone else should explain?” he suggested. “I’m not totally clear on all the details . . .”

Kravitz just stood there, his silence a protest even though he’d acknowledged the plan was worth a shot. Damn him and his grumpy ass. Taako wasn’t unsympathetic, but he leveled a glare at his husband all the same. Kravitz ignored it, staring studiously ahead.

Amplified by the quiet, Istus’s knitting needles clicked as her hands deftly worked a row.

Lup made a show of rolling her eyes and sighing, but then she came to Taako’s rescue. “So what my idiot brother is trying to say, and what my idiot brother-in-law is refusing to say, is that we think we’ve come up with a plan to temporarily bring a few of our crew in as reinforcements until our situation here stabilizes.”

“Interesting,” said the Raven Queen. “I’m listening. Please continue. Oh, and Taako?”

“Yes?”

“Please relax, dear. You have nothing to fear from me.”

Taako ducked his head in acknowledgment and, to be honest, relief. Lup took the proposal from there, with Barry chiming in with a comment now and again.

Once the initial gut reaction of fear passed, Taako could more readily observe the two goddesses. He couldn’t pinpoint what it was exactly, but both seemed . . . diminished, for lack of a better word. Their appearances were unchanged, but it was almost as though the Raven Queen occupied less space than usual, or perhaps she didn’t fill the space she did occupy quite as solidly. Istus, on the other hand, simply seemed not to shine as brightly as she usually did, her platinum hair one shade closer to gray from silver.

A minute or so into Lup’s explanation, Taako felt something gently touch his hand, and he looked down to see the glint of Kravitz’s wedding ring as he hooked Taako’s pinky with his own. Taako glanced up, and Kravitz gave a little half-smile of apology. Taako returned it, and then he slid his hand the rest of the way into Kravitz’s and wove their fingers together.

That, at least, was back to normal.

Proposal complete, the room fell silent. The Queen leaned back, a hand stroking her avian face in contemplation. She turned to Istus after a moment, and some silent communication passed between them.

“Under normal circumstances,” the Raven Queen said at last, “I would never even consider such an arrangement. But our situation has become dire. I won’t insult you all by pretending otherwise. I would be foolish to stand on pride or convention and turn down such an offer of assistance. Istus, are you in agreement?”

“I am,” said Istus. “These circumstances concern us all. I will gladly lend you my emissaries.”

“In that case, I am willing to attempt this plan, providing we settle a couple things beforehand.”

“Dope,” said Lup, pumping her fist.

“Hell yeah,” said Taako.

“What things?” asked Barry.

The Queen chuckled, ever amused by Barry’s bluntness and Lup and Taako’s irreverence—fortunately for all of them. “First, I must stress that this would only be a temporary arrangement. The moment things return to normal, Taako, you and the other mortals would need to report to me so that I can disenchant your weapons, and the others would no longer have permission to come and go as they please within my realm. You are exempted from the latter, Taako, of course.”

“No problem,” said Taako. “We all know this gig is short-term.”

“Excellent. Kravitz, you have yet to speak. Do you object to this plan?”

“No,” said Kravitz.

“You seemed displeased when you arrived,” the Queen prompted.

“I won’t lie and say that I like the idea. But if there’s a chance it can help maintain stability while we pursue answers, it doesn’t matter whether or not I like it. And I have faith in our friends and their abilities.”

“Very well, then. With Istus’s generosity, and with Kravitz’s permission, I believe we can come to an agreement,” the Queen said, a hint of teasing in her strange voice. If Taako didn’t understand the nature of their relationship, he would have thought it patronizing, and he might have been insulted on Kravitz’s behalf.

“The plan is both creative and reasonable. It was well thought out. I’ll tell your boy that myself when I speak with him,” she said, with a nod in Kravitz and Taako’s direction. “I’ve wanted to meet him for a long while, and now I have an excuse.”“Indeed,” the Raven Queen agreed. “Now, we can get down to details. If Istus will assist with the soul-binding, I believe I could safely imbue no more than twelve weapons with the necessary functions. I will risk no greater expenditure of power. Six of those weapons I will reserve for my own servants; they will of course still be weakened any time the illness cuts off my outflow of power, but at least they would not be caught weaponless and with no way to traverse the planes.”

“That works just fine,” said Taako. He was extraordinarily glad to hear that his family would be granted the additional means of defense. “I think there are only five of us, right, guys?”

“Yep,” said Barry, and then he counted them off on his fingers. “You, Angus, Magnus, Carey, and Killian.”

As someone who also relied on a god for his abilities, Merle had excluded himself, albeit reluctantly. Davenport had opted to pass as well, since he intended to pursue the lead with Lucas and ready the Starblaster, just in case.

“That’s perfect, then. Perhaps we should bring the others here before we discuss any further, to avoid repetition. How soon could they be gathered, do you think?”

“Pretty much immediately,” said Lup. “We told them to be on standby.”

“Good. Return here with them as soon as you can, then. Meanwhile, Istus and I will discuss what is needed from us.”

“Yes, my Queen,” answered Kravitz, standing on formality as he usually did when an order was given. “We’ll be back shortly.” With a reverent dip of his head, he turned and walked out, and the other three followed.

 

Less than an hour later, the whole group was assembled at Taako and Kravitz’s house by way of Reaper Express. They’d have been ready sooner, actually, but Angus had uncharacteristically disappeared. He’d stayed the night, so Taako had expected him to be awaiting their return, but he was nowhere to be found when they’d arrived home. He’d finally shown up about thirty minutes later, but he’d been tight-lipped as to his whereabouts.

Angus now sat on the couch in the living room, and although he was trying to appear calm, he looked nervous to Taako’s familiar eyes, his posture just a little too straight, his body just a little too still. All of the others were looking a bit green around the gills, in fact, although it was hard to tell with Killian’s complexion. Despite her and Magnus’s initial enthusiasm, they had sobered somewhat now that they were faced with the reality of not just entering the Astral Plane and meeting the Raven Queen face-to-face but actually serving in her retinue.

“You good, pumpkin?” Taako asked quietly, placing a hand on Angus’s shoulder. He could feel the tension in the boy’s muscles.

“I’m good, sir. Taako,” he corrected. He was trying to drop the ‘sir’ at Taako’s increasingly insistent behest, but he hadn’t succeeded quite yet in breaking the habit. “It’s just a lot.”

“It is. Imagine how you’d feel meeting her for the first time if you were dating her son.”

“Not her son,” Kravitz said automatically, having overheard, but no one paid him any mind.

“Yeah, I can see how that would be worse,” Angus chuckled, and his posture relaxed just a hair. “If I wasn’t so curious, I’d be tempted to say I’m good out here.”

“Hey, don’t you go chompin’ my flavor, little man. That’s a trademarked Taako original.”

Magnus returned from the bathroom, and as soon as he did, Kravitz straightened up from where he’d been half-sitting on the sofa-back. “All right, listen, I’ve got a couple of, um, couple of ground rules for you all. Don’t wander off alone. Address the Raven Queen respectfully, and if she tells you to do something, you fucking do it. Same goes for me. She’s in charge, and I’m next, and I swear I will kick you to the curb if you act like fools.”

“Got it, boss!” said Magnus with a cheery salute.

“Why don’t I find that reassuring,” Kravitz muttered, his inflection not that of a question. He sighed. “I’m probably wasting my breath,” he added, more pleading now than stern, “but please behave and don’t embarrass me. I can’t exactly pack my bags and move away and get another job.”

“We’ll be on our best behavior,” Carey promised. “I can keep these two in line, no worries.” She jabbed a clawed thumb to either side of her, indicating her wife and her best friend.

“Thank you,” said Kravitz. “Now, if everyone is ready, we should go.”

“Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” said Lup. She stood, and the others followed suit. Kravitz opened a portal, and one by one, they all stepped through.

 

Taako derived a certain twisted pleasure from seeing the looks of terror that crossed his friends’ faces as they entered the throne room. It was validating to know that they were equally if not more intimidated than he had been the first time. For a split second, he considered putting on a show of this being old hat to him now by greeting the Raven Queen in some brassy, overly familiar way, but he decided to take pity on Kravitz and refrain.

Already present were three additional people. Taako recognized one of them from his previous visits to the Astral plane—Leena, the halfling woman who ranked just under Kravitz. She was a no-nonsense, competent sort, and Taako was inclined to like her although they hadn’t interacted much. Kravitz always spoke highly of her, anyway. The other two were unfamiliar to Taako, but they were an elf and a half-orc, and from how closely they were standing to each other, Taako got the idea they might also be an item.

“Welcome, all of you, to my realm,” said the Queen, “and soon, to my service.”

Murmurs of thanks came from the others. Carey tipped forward at the waist in an awkward little bow, and she tugged a stiff and somewhat resistant Killian along with her. It seemed so out of character that Taako only narrowly managed to suppress a laugh. Nerves made people act so strangely sometimes, especially when meeting someone famous or divine. (As someone famous himself, Taako had experienced that phenomenon from the other side on many occasions.)

“Please, be at ease,” Istus said.

“Thank you all for your willingness to set aside your personal plans and responsibilities to assist with our duties here while we work through this crisis,” said the Queen. “Angus, I’d like to thank you especially. I’ve been told this was your idea. You’re a very clever young man.”

“Th—thank you,” said Angus, sputtering and flushing. He was used to receiving compliments about his intelligence, but he was not used to them being given by a goddess.

It was impossible to parse an expression on the Raven Queen’s enigmatic, beaked face, as inert as it ever was, but Taako got the impression she was smiling. “There’s no need for introductions of yourselves; you are all known to Istus and myself, as I’m sure we are to you, and your reputations precede you. But allow me to introduce my other emissaries. They are Leena, Dayne, and Delph. They will be assisting with your training.”

The three reapers each made an identifying motion as they were named. Dayne was the half-orc, and Delph was the elf.

Okay, Taako’s restraint was only so strong. He had limits, and he’d never claimed to be polite or kind. Humor rapidly accumulating at the corners of his mouth, he turned to address Delph. “So wait a sec, you’re an elf, right?”

Delph furrowed his brow. “Yes?” he confirmed with cautious confusion.

“And your name is _Delph?”_ Taako blurted with an explosive guffaw.

“Delph the elf!” Magnus chimed in gleefully. A chorus of laughter followed from those members of their party who possessed senses of humor (in Taako’s reckoning, anyway).

“Fuck off,” said Dayne simply, and yeah, those two were totally boning.

Kravitz held a hand over his face. “What did I tell you fuckers not five minutes ago?” he muttered through gritted teeth.

“Great goof, guys, definitely never heard that one before,” said Delph, who was not laughing, but he sounded more resigned than offended.

Istus’s needles clacked as she watched the exchange silently with mild, indulgent amusement. Taako thought he saw a faint shake as of suppressed laughter in the Raven Queen’s shoulders, but he might have imagined it.

“Forgive my companions’ rudeness, Delph,” said Kravitz, uncovering his face again, “especially that of my _husband.”_ He cut steely eyes toward Taako and put such emphasis on that last word that it nearly sounded like a threat, and although Taako was certain it was empty, a shiver still ran down his spine. Down, boy; now was _not_ the time to get turned on.

Taako grinned at Kravitz, toothy and shit-eating, and he blew him a saucy kiss. But then he turned back to Delph. “Sorry,” he said, because he really didn’t want to make an enemy of his husband’s coworkers.

“It’s okay,” Delph said with a sigh. “I’m used to it. You and Lup are related, all right.”

Taako wasn’t sure whether that was a good or a bad thing in Delph’s mind, but it was probably best not to inquire. “It’s actually a pretty rad name, rhyming aside,” he offered instead.

“Thanks.”

“Now that we’re all friends,” said the Raven Queen in a perfect juxtaposition of joke and command, “we can proceed with our purpose here.”

Bird Mom didn’t mess around.

“I made clear to the others before that this is a temporary arrangement, but it bears repeating. You will each be expected to present your weapons to me for disenchantment the moment this is over. We will discuss those weapons in a moment, but I must ask first that each of you swears to serve me and to defend the balance of life and death. You will be my envoys, my instruments, but you are not yourselves arbiters. I do not give you authority to make decisions regarding the fate of any soul, only to carry out what decision has already been made. Do you understand?”

Everyone affirmed that they did.

“Good. Then take a knee and swear it.”

“I swear it,” said Taako, genuflecting as requested, and the others echoed their own oaths. Obeisance of that sort felt strange to Taako, who was not normally given to traditional deference to authority, but he did not hesitate. This was too important.

“Rise into your service as emissaries of the Raven Queen.”

As they did, it seemed as though a collective sigh of relief swept through the group, nerves finally dissipating once it was official. A huge, excited grin split Magnus’s face, and Carey and Killian fist-bumped each other.

Despite his misgivings, Kravitz looked first at Taako, then at Angus, with something like pride shining in his eyes. He took a few steps to stand between them, and he drew them both closer, an arm draped around Taako’s waist, a hand on Angus’s shoulder. Taako, much to his own surprise, felt pride wash over him, too.

“Guess it’s the family business now,” Taako whispered, which earned him a chuckle and a squeeze of his waist from Kravitz.

“Now we can move on to the details of this arrangement,” said the Queen. “Each of you must bring to me a weapon that I will then imbue with two powers. One, this weapon will provide you with the means to travel at will between the planes without having to cast any spell. Two, the weapon will allow you to reap any disembodied soul who will not follow you willingly to the Astral Plane. You must not use the weapon to strike any killing blow against a mortal unless they actively engage you in combat and you fear for the safety of yourself or another.”

Istus spoke then. “Once the weapons have been enchanted, I will then soul-bind them to you. By my performance of the ritual, there will be no harmful effects to you, but it is not easily undone without risking damage to your souls, so choose wisely.”

“Do they have to be scythes?” Carey asked.

“Yes,” said Kravitz.

“No,” said the Queen. “While I do appreciate my Grim Reaper’s dedication to our, shall we say, company aesthetic, any weapons will do, strictly speaking. Ordinarily, I would insist upon scythes, but under the circumstances, I don’t believe the time and effort required for each of you to acquire such a weapon is a reasonable exchange. Plus, it would greatly speed along your training if you all don’t have to learn to wield an unfamiliar weapon.”

“Hell yeah, KrEbStAr!” Taako exclaimed, suddenly more pumped for this than he had been.

“Flaming. Poisoning. Raging. Sword. Of Doom,” said Magnus. He sounded positively bloodthirsty.

“I’m guessing a ranged weapon isn’t ideal?” asked Killian.

“Probably not, no,” said the Raven Queen. “But any bladed weapon will suffice. You have the day to choose. My established reapers may simply manifest their scythes, and I will alter them so that their corporeal forms are not directly linked to my power, and then the same process may be done to them. So you can rest easy on that front, Kravitz.”

“Thank you,” said Kravitz with obvious relief, the dork. Taako smirked privately.

“As for your training, I would like each of you new recruits to be paired off with one of the reapers in this room. Barry, I’m relieving you of your regular duties so that you can focus on this research you’re conducting.”

“Oh, hey, thanks, that’s great,” said Barry. “I should be able to make some real progress now that I’ll have the time to focus on it.”

“That’s my hope,” said the Queen. “The rest of you can discuss amongst yourselves how you’d like to be partnered.”

“Dibs on Taako,” declared Lup. “Kravitz can take Angus.”

Taken aback, Kravitz gave her a quizzical look. “O—okay, I suppose, I, I mean, that’s fine, I guess,” he stammered, but then he glanced at Angus, and he quickly amended his statement. “I mean, that’s good. I’d be very happy to train Angus. Of course I would.” He squeezed the shoulder on which his hand still rested, and he smiled broadly at the boy.

Taako was surprised too. He’d expected to be working alongside Kravitz, which he’d been viewing as a sort of consolation prize for opting in to this job. But he didn’t object to teaming up with Lup, of course, and the pleased and proud smile that spread across Angus’s face warmed Taako’s heart.

“I’ll work with you, Magnus, if you don’t object,” Leena spoke up for the first time.

“Sounds great!” said Magnus. Taako was pretty sure Magnus hadn’t moved past thinking about getting his sword soul-bound to him, so he probably wouldn’t have objected to much in the moment. But with what Taako knew of Leena, it was a good choice. She could handle Magnus with no problem.

“If you want my suggestion,” continued Leena, “I’d say that Dayne should work with Carey, and Delph should train Killian, based on what I’ve heard of their fighting styles. Delph was a rogue, so he’s the obvious choice to team with Killian. Carey’s used to teaming up with battler-types, and Dayne was a paladin. They’ve also got a level head, and I think they and Carey will hit it off.”

“Works for me,” Killian said, and the other three agreed.

“Well, that’s settled then,” said the Queen. “I’ll expect you all back here in the morning with your weapons of choice so that we can get started.”

And with that, they were done. Taako was officially a reaper, temporary though it might be.

 

After the meeting, Kravitz and Barry ferried the others to their respective homes, but Lup pulled Taako aside.

“C’mon, Taako. Let’s go to the beach while you’re here.”

“Lup, I think you’ve been a lich too long and you’ve fried your brain. This isn’t my first time in the Astral Plane. I know there’s no beach.”

“Sure there is, dingus. Sea of Souls.”

Taako shot her an incredulous look. “That’s not a beach, goofus. That’s a horror show.”

“It’s better than a beach, and it’s beautiful. Peaceful. Shut up and come on.”

“Blasphemy,” said Taako, beach bum extraordinaire and inventor of surfing, but he fell in step beside Lup as she led him away.

They walked at a leisurely pace, just enjoying each other’s company in silence for a while. Eventually, they arrived at the shore, such as it was. There wasn’t a beach, really, not by any definition Taako would accept—just a bare, rocky slope leading down to the Sea, whose softly glowing waters gently lapped thereon.

If you could set aside the thought that it was a writhing mass of the souls of the dead, Lup was right: It was beautiful, and it was peaceful. Taako supposed, to someone given to poetry or philosophy, it might be a place of sober contemplation, even inspiration, but he had never been such a person.

But still, he could appreciate the vastness of it, the gravity of the notion that all sentient beings throughout Faerûn’s history had and would end up here. Being in its presence made you want to whisper, somehow.

Lup found an appropriate large and smooth boulder, and she plopped herself down on it in a casual sprawl so like herself. She beckoned for Taako to sit. He joined her and sat cross-legged, leaning back and propping himself with his palms.

“Why’d you claim me?” asked Taako after a moment of staring into the pulsating phosphorescence. “I mean, I’m obviously not opposed to teaming up with you, we’re dynamite together, natch, but I figured I’d be with Kravitz.”

“Several reasons,” said Lup mysteriously.

“Such as . . . ?”

“Such as Angus could use some quality time with Kravitz. Such as Kravitz could use some quality time with Angus. Such as Kravitz will feel better about himself by sharing his expertise with his kid. The ol’ paternal instinct will kick in, and he’ll find himself wanting to teach the boy. It will be good for his ego. Something tells me he needs that right now.”

Huh. Why hadn’t Taako thought of all that? Oh, yeah—he wasn’t the empathetic twin. “How’d you get to be so smart?” he teased, because he needed to say something to stop himself from dwelling on his own inadequacies.

“Hardly seems fair, right? That I got all the brains _and_ all the looks?”

“In your dreams,” Taako sneered.

“Seriously, though, your son did good, ‘Ko. You should be proud.”

“I am. But, uh, he’s not actually my son, you know. Seems like everyone’s forgetting that today. It’s not like we adopted him or anything.”

“Like that matters. He’s totally your kid.”

“I don’t know that Angus even thinks about us like that,” Taako admitted, pulling his knees up to his chest and hugging them. He’d never had the courage to broach the subject, for fear that Angus would be offended or weirded out or something.

“Oh, please,” said Lup. “But either way, you and Kravitz think about him like that, and that’s what matters in this conversation.”

“We . . . I . . . yeah,” Taako stuttered softly, unable to deny it but feeling so, so vulnerable. “Yeah, we do.”

Lup grinned, and then she elbowed him. “So now that your firstborn is all grown up, when are you and Kravitz going to have another?”

Well, that was a shift of topic, all right. Once, Taako would have bailed out of that conversation so fast he would have left an afterimage, but now . . . well, it wasn’t like he had never thought about it. And this was Lup. But he still wasn’t going to be meek and straightforward; that wasn’t his brand. “You talk like we birthed him. We didn’t even raise him. He came to us fully formed.”

“Yeah, no one in this family is going to be birthing anyone.”

“That’s for sure,” Taako laughed, then he was quiet for a beat. “Does that bother you? That you can’t, I mean?”

“Nah, everything else is in fine working order,” Lup said. “So what if that’s the one thing that can’t be manufactured? Bar and I talked about it anyway, early on. Adopting, if things ever got stable, or whatever. We were on the fence before, but we made a definitive decision for no kids when we decided to go lich.”

“You ever regretted it?”

“Not really. We’re good like we are. Happy.”

“Good.”

“But I’m a hell of an aunt, and I’ve only gotten to try that out with a kid who was already ‘fully formed,’ so how about you answer my original question?”

Taako snorted. She really wasn’t going to let the topic go. “Dunno. Maybe,” he admitted. “We haven’t talked or anything, but the thought’s crossed my mind once or twice.”

“Look at you,” Lup said, but her voice was more proud than teasing, and her eyes were shining, her smile soft.

“Yeah, well, I ain’t doing it alone, so maybe we’d better get past the current crisis before we even go there.”

“He’s gonna be okay, Taako.”

She kept saying that. Taako thought of how he’d woken up to the sound of Kravitz coughing in the bathroom that morning, a sound so foreign to him it might as well have been voidfish-static, and he wished he could believe her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to everyone who reads, and my eternal love to anyone who comments. Find me on tumblr as terene.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kravitz begins to feel physical effects. Magnus hopes for a reunion. Angus chooses his weapon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: Brief mention of Kravitz’s past death. Mild sexual banter.

Kravitz couldn’t remember the last time he’d been sick. He’d been injured recently, of course, which was uncommon enough, but as an undead being, he wasn’t susceptible to physical maladies. Consequently, his last illness had to have been when he was still alive, perhaps before he’d even left home.

He couldn’t remember the last time, that is, before yesterday. Before today.

Yesterday morning, he’d awoken to a tightness in his chest, a feeling like his lungs weren’t getting enough air, which was strange. He didn’t require air for survival, not in the strictest sense, although he went through the motions of breathing anyway. Breath was required for speech, and he found that not breathing tended to unnerve people. Besides, his construct performed the action automatically, almost as if it were muscle memory from a time when breathing was imperative, although no part of his construct was the original model.

His former body moldered in some unmarked grave, no doubt, flesh long gone and bones turned brittle, crumbling. News had been slow to reach his father, and Kravitz didn’t think his body ever had. That had been the one kindness fate had afforded the man.

Kravitz had slipped out of bed the day before and barricaded himself in the bathroom, where a coughing fit had overtaken him. He hoped Taako hadn’t heard. He’d had enough stress on his shoulders yesterday.

The fit had passed, and Kravitz had felt better, but at no point in the day had he felt quite fully back to normal. He couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong exactly—a general feeling of fatigue, a slight ache in his limbs, a faint fuzziness in his head—but all vague, all fluctuating, all nondescript.

Kravitz had done his best to mask it around Taako. He wasn’t trying to deceive him or keep anything from him, but it hadn’t been a good time. It could wait, and it wasn’t serious, not yet.

Today was much the same. He awoke coughing, this time unable to suppress it until he could squirrel himself away. He sat forward and covered his mouth, body wracked with the compulsive, choking force of it. His head throbbed.

Taako bolted upright at the sound, and he blinked bleary eyes in confusion for a couple seconds before they widened with concern. He placed a tentative, supportive hand between Kravitz’s shoulder blades; the sleep-warmed skin of his palm felt like a brand on Kravitz’s bare back. Kravitz shivered at the touch, and that too was strange.

“Babe?” asked Taako, voice husky from sleep and awash with uncertainty. “Krav, you okay? Wait, fuck, don’t—don’t try to answer now; you’re hacking up a lung. Fuck, I’m an idiot, obviously you’re not okay. Hang on, I’ll go, um, I’ll go get you some water or something—”

Kravitz grabbed Taako’s arm before he could leave. Water wouldn’t help, although he’d welcome it in a minute. For now he just needed to wait for the episode to pass, and Taako’s presence was more soothing than a cool beverage.

It wasn’t easy to admit, even to himself, but Kravitz was frightened.

A couple more bursts of coughing rattled him, and then it slowed, and then it stopped. He wiped the spit from his lips with the back of his hand and avoided looking at it, because if there was blood, he didn’t want to know. A sharp ache settled in his chest where his ribs felt bruised from the inside.

“Fuck, babe,” said Taako. “That’s the second day in a row.”

“Shit, I’d hoped you didn’t hear yesterday.”

“Well, I did.”

“Sorry,” said Kravitz.

“Why the hell are you apologizing, dumbass? You’re the one who’s feeling lousy. It’s allowed, you know.”

“But it shouldn’t be possible,” Kravitz confided before he could think better of it.

Taako gaped for a second, pale-faced and pained, but then he clamped his mouth shut, the early morning light outlining his jaw in sharp relief as he clenched his teeth, hard. “I know,” he murmured. “I fucking know, Krav. Fuck, I hate this.”

“Me too, love,” Kravitz agreed. He pulled Taako into an embrace, to comfort and to be comforted.

Taako burrowed into him, and they stayed like that for a few minutes in silence, both wandering labyrinthine paths in their minds, each dead end more disheartening than the last.

“Is it just you,” Taako ventured finally, “or is this happening to the others?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t have a chance to speak with them privately yesterday.”

“What else feels bad?”

“A little headache. I’m much better now that the coughing stopped.”

“Yeah, no, that’s horseshit,” Taako declared, pulling back so he could grip Kravitz’s shoulders and level him with a glare. “Talk to me, Kravitz. Don’t try to protect me. It’s sweet, but it’s stupid. I deserve to know.”

“You’re right,” Kravitz sighed, resigned. It had been a useless venture from the start. “A big headache,” he amended. “Ribs hurt from coughing. Felt like I wasn’t getting air, which, again, shouldn’t be possible. Sore all over, weirdly tired. Also cold.”

The furrow in Taako’s brow got deeper with every ailment Kravitz listed. “Shit,” he said. “If you weren’t a bone boy, I’d say you have the flu.”

“If I weren’t a bone boy, I’d agree with you,” said Kravitz. He leaned back to rest his pounding head against the headboard and closed his eyes. “I had the flu once as a child, or at least, I think I did. The memory is hazy, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. But I doubt that’s what this is.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking not.” Taako sidled up next to Kravitz and tipped his head to rest against his shoulder. Kravitz settled his hand on Taako’s thigh, swathed yet again in the thick fleece of those infernal footie pajamas. “You gonna be okay to go to work and everything?” Taako asked after a minute.

“I’ll be fine,” Kravitz said. _I have to be,_ he thought but didn’t say. “Other than the headache, I’m genuinely feeling better. That’s not to say I feel back to normal,” he added before Taako could challenge him, “but it’s manageable. If it’s anything like yesterday, it will improve.”

“I’ll make you that tea with breakfast. It helped with the head before, right?”

“It did, thanks.” Headaches for Kravitz were uncommon but not unheard-of. If that and the soreness were all this was, he’d chalk it up to his ill-fated skirmish the other day and general stress. But the other symptoms were unprecedented. “I guess we should get to it, then. We need to report in. Also, it felt really weird to say ‘we’ just then.”

“It’s a new concept for sure.”

Taako pulled away and swung his legs over the side of the bed, ready to start the day, but Kravitz reached out to stop him before he stood. “Hey, Taako, just for the record, I’m not unhappy to have you join me. I’ve always hoped that you will, when the time comes, but I don’t expect that for a very long time yet. I’m just angry at the situation. Don’t take my grouchy mood yesterday personally.”

Taako patted his hand soothingly. “I know. I didn’t. It’s chill, my man. You’ve had this sort of mysterious, exclusive gig for ages, and now you’re having to part the kimono for a bunch of mortals. Kind of takes some of the shine off the apple for you.”

Kravitz nodded, relieved that Taako saw through to the root of his displeasure the day before. “It’s not just what I do, it’s who I am,” Kravitz admitted. “It goes against everything I’ve been for so long to bring others in who won’t have that same affinity.”

“I get that, babe. I’ll try to do you proud.”

“I know you will,” Kravitz said, his chest swelling with fondness that spread like a thawing and warmed his to the tips of his extremities. He swiveled himself around to sit on the edge beside Taako, and he swept the tousled blond hair to the side to plant several lingering kisses on Taako’s neck. “I love you so much,” he whispered into the skin.

“I love you too. But you need to stop this kiss train before it pulls out of the station, or we’ll be late to work.”

“I should leave a mark,” Kravitz murmured between nibbles. Coal was already shoveled into the engine and was beginning to glow with heat. In his distraction, he’d almost forgotten how poor he was feeling, and he didn’t see any reason why the wheels shouldn’t start to move.

“Ooh, scandalous. Make sure everybody knows we’re fucking. Go ahead and mark me up, boss man.”

If Taako was trying to derail the train with that line, he succeeded. “Oh, wow, yikes, not sure how I feel about that one,” said Kravitz, pulling away and wrinkling his nose.

“Yeah, it had a bad mouthfeel. Lesson learned. Don’t want to yuck any yums, but let’s leave the office role play to others.”

“Agreed,” said Kravitz wholeheartedly, and he desperately tried not to think of Lup’s boasts of her questionable lunchtime activities with Barry. “Besides, we’re married. Everyone already knows we’re fucking.”

 

Leading the group of initiates on a tour of the Astral Plane, feathered cloak billowing behind him as he strode, tall and sure, did wonders for Kravitz’s sense of identity and importance. Everyone reacted with suitable awe and interest, and Kravitz found, despite himself, that he was enjoying showing his friends the realm that had been not just his place of work but also his home for many years.

As they made the rounds, Kravitz couldn’t help but notice Magnus, quieter than usual and distracted. At every new location, Magnus glanced all around, a hope even logic couldn’t quell in his countenance.

Kravitz was certain he knew why, and his heart clenched in sympathy for the man. Grief, Kravitz knew well, but he’d never lost a spouse. He couldn’t imagine the pain—didn’t have to, in fact, because he was nearly guaranteed never to have to experience it. His position had many perks, and that wasn’t the least of them.

When they paused at the edge of the Sea of Souls, a solemn quietude overtook the generally rambunctious group as they gazed at the lights pulsating beneath the water’s calm surface. Magnus stood a little apart from the others and stared intently, but then poignant melancholy overtook him, and he bowed his head.

Kravitz walked over to stand at his side. He almost placed a hand on Magnus’s shoulder but thought better of it, not wanting to overstep any bounds of social etiquette—even a typically tactile person like Magnus might not always welcome contact. “I’m sorry,” Kravitz said quietly. “The living cannot meet the dead who have passed peacefully into the Astral Plane. We may bend some rules now and then, even break one on occasion, but never that one.”

Magnus, big-hearted creature that he was, turned to Kravitz and smiled despite the tears caught in his eyelashes, shining like jewels in a net. “I figured. Can’t blame a guy for hoping, right?”

“No,” said Kravitz. “No, I can’t.” He might find Magnus’s antics frustrating from time to time, but Kravitz never doubted his kindness or his loyalty. Of all the things the man had lost in his life, he deserved to keep his hope, at least.

On impulse, Kravitz made a promise. “When your time comes, you’ll have your reunion. I’ll make sure of it.”

Magnus’s face crumpled with sudden sentiment, tears freed and streaming steadily, but a huge smile transformed his features like the sun breaking through a sky full of rainclouds. Emotions demanding an outlet, he laughed, or it might also have been a sob. “Thanks, pal.” And then he pulled Kravitz into a too-tight bear hug.

Kravitz didn’t quite know how to react to that, but after a moment’s hesitance, he squeezed back. Magnus released him, and they shared a look of understanding before Kravitz returned to the others to continue the circuit.

 

The tea had helped his head, and as predicted, Kravitz continued to improve over the course of the morning. By the time he concluded the tour, he felt almost back to his usual self.

The others were all eager to try out their newly soul-bound weapons, so Kravitz sent them all off in their designated pairs to begin their training. Taako lingered a minute, reluctant to separate but pretending nonchalance by striking up trivial conversation.

“Taako, sweetheart, I’m fine,” Kravitz interjected firmly. “The headache is gone, and I’m feeling almost good as new. You don’t need to worry.”

“Me, worry?” Taako said, mock-affronted, but he chuckled. “More likely than you’d think. But I get the message; I’ll get out of your hair.”

“You and Lup have fun.”

“Sure thing,” Taako said, and he stole a kiss. “You and Angus too. Later, thug.”

Lup dragged him off with barely-concealed impatience, and then Kravitz and Angus were alone. Angus stood straight and still, expression caught between eager and nervous.

Kravitz smiled warmly at him. “Let’s go to my office and have a chat first, what do you say? We can make our plans from there.”

“Sounds good to me, sir!”

They walked in companionable silence, and Kravitz observed the boy out of the corner of his eye. Well, he wasn’t really a boy anymore, was he? He had always been remarkably mature for his age, but now, at nineteen, he had the height and physicality to match.

The passage of time had all but lost its impact on Kravitz in his career as a reaper, but bittersweet awareness had returned to him after meeting Taako. But nothing about this new life made Kravitz so acutely conscious of the brevity of years as watching Angus McDonald grow up.

Nothing made Kravitz so proud, either.

Angus wasn’t his by any biological or legal criterion, nor could Kravitz take credit for the good, intelligent, and industrious young man Angus had become. But Kravitz had opened his home and his heart to the boy, despite his own uncertainty, and somehow, against all odds, he’d ended up with a son, unacknowledged though it was by all parties involved.

Angus stifled a yawn.

“Stayed out too late, huh?” Kravitz asked, prompting.

Angus’s eyes grew wide with a look like he’d been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. “I’m sorry I snuck out, sir. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

They’d arrived at Kravitz’s office, and he held the door open for Angus. Once inside, he motioned for Angus to take a seat on the couch, and then he drew up a chair to sit across from him.

“You didn’t,” said Kravitz. “I was awake anyway. I had a lot on my mind. But you don’t need to apologize; you’re an adult, and you can come and go as you please. There’s no need for secrecy.”

Kravitz _had_ been awake still when he heard Angus slip out, but he would have succumbed to sleep earlier if he hadn’t forced himself to resist its lure until Angus returned. He couldn’t help that he worried, but Angus didn’t need to know.

“I appreciate that, sir. I didn’t wake up Taako, did I?”

“Angus, hon, drop the ‘sir,’ please. We’ve talked about this,” Kravitz admonished, affection and exasperation warring within him. “And no, he was out like a light. He had a stressful day.”

“That’s good,” said Angus.

“So, hot date?” Kravitz teased.

Angus turned beet red, but he quickly denied it. “It was nothing like that! I’m not seeing anyone right now, and even if I was, I wouldn’t have snuck out to see them. I was doing some investigating.”

“Must have been of the cloak-and-dagger variety, if you had to do it in the middle of the night. Care to share?”

“Well, you see, I’ve been trying to follow the lead we got from Lucas, just in my own way. I know Davenport is working with Lucas to track the energy signature, but there’s another method no one thought of. Everyone has been so focused on the science side of things, see, and, well, science is all well and good, but sometimes some good old fashioned detective work is what’s needed.”

Kravitz grinned, pleased. He’d suspected Angus had been working his own angle with this situation. “As one of the few members of our circle who is not, as Taako would put it, a science boy, I find your logic to be a breath of fresh air. So where did you go last night? Did you uncover anything?”

Angus fidgeted, as though he was worried he might get in trouble. “I went, um, I went to the Science Ministry headquarters in Neverwinter. You know, where the Starblaster was brought a couple years ago so the bond technology could be studied?”

Kravitz nodded; he knew the place. “Surely they weren’t open to the public that late?”

“Um, no,” admitted Angus, and then he shrugged, apparently having decided that keeping the details of his midnight foray secret was a lost cause. “I broke in and stole the visitor logs.”

Laughing, Kravitz patted Angus’s knee in a gesture of approval. “That’s my boy.”

“You’re not upset? I mean, I did kind of break—well, I _definitely_ broke the law . . .”

“You seem to be under the impression that I’m more lawful than I am,” Kravitz smirked. “Of course I’m not upset. For one, this is important, and I trust you know what you’re doing. Two, that’s out of my jurisdiction, so to speak; civic crimes are of no concern to me. Three, I realize opposites attract, but do you really think Taako and I would have hit it off so well if I didn’t have at least a little chaos in my blood?”

“I guess you have a point there! Taako would never have married a narc.” Angus relaxed and sat back, and he took in his surroundings for the first time since they’d arrived. “Your office is really nice, by the way. It’s so big!”

“Thank you,” said Kravitz. “One of the perks of my status. But it does serve a function, and there was a time when I spent most of my time here.”

“Before you met Taako.”

“Yes,” smiled Kravitz. He could hardly imagine it now, not having a home and a husband to return to after a day’s work. It seemed so strange and far-off, like it was something that had happened to a character in a story rather than having been his own state of existence for exponentially more years than he’d been with Taako.

As nice as it was to sit and leisurely converse with Angus, they had a job to do, so Kravitz reeled his thoughts in and focused. “Now, we should probably get to work on your training. What weapon did you choose?”

After having his own scythe addressed, Kravitz had slipped out while the Raven Queen and Istus worked on the others’ weapons. He had other duties to attend, after all; with the moratorium on bounty hunting, the cases were beginning to pile up, and his administrative load had not decreased.

In lieu of an answer, Angus stood and held out a hand to summon his soul-bound mystery weapon. Much to Kravitz’s shock and delight, a scythe materialized. A hesitant grin blossomed on the young man’s face, and he watched Kravitz’s reaction carefully, looking for approval.

“Angus, I love you,” Kravitz said emphatically. “But I hope you didn’t choose that just for my sake.”

“Not _exactly,”_ said Angus, sheepish. “Taako casts with his glaive, but I just use a wand, and my only other weapons are my little crossbow and the knife Magnus gave me, so I had to choose something new.” He flushed and then blurted, “But I did think it would be cool to be like you.”

Kravitz had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from tearing up, and he jumped up and enveloped Angus in an embrace, which Angus tightly returned.

“Do you know how to wield that thing?” Kravitz asked when he pulled away. As pleased as he was, he didn’t want Angus to hurt himself or someone else with a weapon that was completely unfamiliar to him.

“A little. I’ve been practicing! I got it right after we first talked about the idea, so I’ve had it for almost a week. I’m not _great_ at it, but I don’t think I’ll chop my own head off, at least.”

“Always a plus. Well, we’ll do a little training with it to get you more comfortable before we go into the field. But don’t worry about being too adept with it yet. You can still use your magic if we get into a fight.”

“I figured. So when _are_ we going into the field? What do I need to know first?”

“Probably not for a day or two, and we’ll start with some routine soul collection. I know these are special circumstances, but that’s where everyone starts, and you’re not going to be an exception. We need to go over some protocols before we even do that, though.”

“Is there a handbook? I do like to read!”

“There is actually a handbook, yes,” admitted Kravitz. Taako had laughed for five minutes straight the first time he heard that tidbit of information. Kravitz wasn’t sure what was so funny about it; it seemed totally practical and normal to him. In fact, he had actually written part of the current version himself, but after Taako’s mirth, he had decided not to claim authorship. “I didn’t think any of you would want homework, so we opted to fast-track you all and just cover the important stuff verbally. But I can give you a copy if you want.”

“That would be great! I can read it tonight, and that will give us more time for other things!”

Smiling at Angus for the . . . well, Kravitz had lost count how many times this boy had made him smile today, but he realized he’d been wrong to dread this. Despite everything, an excitement filled him, a proud yearning to share his craft and his creed with this young man who was practically his son. Yes, Kravitz was going to enjoy this arrangement a great deal more than he’d initially expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for reading and commenting! Follow me on tumblr as terene.
> 
> Also, just FYI, I've had a terribly busy couple weeks and have caught up to my backlog. I'm hoping to build it back up over the next week or two, and the next chapter is in progress anyway, so there shouldn't be any interruption to my posting schedule. But if something ever comes up to delay a chapter, I will definitely inform people via tumblr.
> 
> Update 6/3/19: Chapter 13 is going to be slightly delayed but will hopefully go up tomorrow. I posted on my tumblr, but I figured I'd add a note here too.


	13. Chapter 13: Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude. The deputy reapers learn the ropes. The others do their parts. New bonds are formed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! So sorry for the delay with this one, my dudes. The sections ended up being about twice as long as I'd originally planned for them to be. Plus, I have narcolepsy, and I've been struggling with a particularly bad bout of hypersomnia over the last couple weeks.
> 
> This one is a little different, guys, and I hope you like it. Since we're roughly at the mid-point of this story, I felt like checking in with our supporting cast was in order. Since that's quite a few characters, doing so from Taako's or Kravitz's perspective would have made for dull reading. Thus, an interlude! We'll be back to your regularly scheduled programming with a Taako chapter next time.
> 
> CWs: 1. One ableist/derogatory term, because Lucas is the worst. 2. Child death. Comes with the reaper territory and is brief and non-graphic, but if that’s a trigger for you, skip Carey’s section.

“For the last time, Magnus, you can’t just reap first, ask questions later,” said Leena, exasperated. She had the patience of a saint, Magnus could admit, even though he was certainly trying that patience right now. He really liked her very much. She was straightforward and practical, and she reminded him just a little of his Julia, actually. “There are protocols. You have to read their bounty aloud and give them a chance to come quietly.”

Getting antsy, Magnus shifted in his chair. He was ready to be _done_ with this lecture phase. He wanted to go track down some death criminals now, damn it. “I get that!” Magnus insisted. He was certainly not _whining._ “But what if they attack first?”

“That’s different. Of course you can defend yourself. But in the situation we were discussing, the bounty in question hadn’t shown themselves to be hostile yet.”

“Got it. Can we go now? I’m ready to kick some ghost ass!”

“There shouldn’t be any ass-kicking necessary this time. We’re just collecting some ordinary souls of the recently dead, remember. They’ll be confused and maybe a little frightened, but they shouldn’t resist. Just speak gently and try to put them at ease. I’m going to let you do the talking, if you think you can handle it.”

“Hell yeah!” said Magnus.

“And we stick together, remember? We can consider splitting up when you’ve had more experience, but not yet. You don’t have the same methods of communication available to you as a reaper who got their powers the conventional way.”

Magnus paused at that, because it reminded him of a question he’d always meant to ask. Now seemed like just as good a time as any. “What _is_ the conventional way?”

Leena shot him a Look and said, deadpan, “Death.”

Yes, she and Julia would have gotten along well indeed.

“No, I mean, how are you chosen? Not everyone that dies becomes a reaper.”

Leena had been poised to stand, but now she leaned back in her chair again. “It varies. Sometimes it’s obvious—tragedy and violence followed by an offer, like with Kravitz. Sometimes it’s less so.”

“Like with Kravitz . . . ?” Magnus prompted. That was news to him; he knew nothing of Kravitz’s past either in life or undeath, and his curiosity surged.

“That’s his story to tell, not mine. I don’t know the particulars, anyway.”

“Oh,” said Magnus. “So, which was it for you? I mean, sorry, is it rude of me to ask?”

“Forward, but not rude. It wasn’t so obvious for me. I’d lived my life and died a natural death.”

“If you’re picked, can you say no?”

“Of course,” Leena said. “The Raven Queen has no need for emissaries who don’t serve her willingly.”

“Good,” said Magnus. “No offense, but I don’t think I’d want to be a reaper after I die. This is awesome, and I’m glad I can help, but when I die, I want to spend time with my Julia, and then when we’re both ready, I want to rest.”

“Magnus,” said Leena, very gently. “Please don’t get your hopes up too much about spending time with her first. That’s not really the way it’s done.”

No, that couldn’t be right. Magnus knew he’d see Julia again, that he’d be able to spend time with her before he gave his soul over to oblivion. He’d always known it, with a fierce and unshakable conviction. Plus, Kravitz had _promised._ “Sorry,” Magnus said, polite but firm, “I’m sure you know your job, but your boss promised me I’d have time with her. He wouldn’t lie to me, not about that.”

Leena’s eyes widened, but she didn’t argue. “No,” she agreed. “He wouldn’t. If that’s what he told you, then you shouldn’t worry. If anyone can arrange it, he can. She indulges him too much, really,” she added, that last sentence spoken quietly, as if to herself.

“I kind of gathered that,” Magnus laughed.

Leena laughed too, but then she said, “He’s a good man, though, and a good reaper. The best, in fact, despite his quirks, but don’t you dare tell him I said that.”

“He’s been good to Taako,” Magnus said.

“I’ve been happy to see him so happy. He deserves it.”

“They both do.”

What remained unsaid was that neither deserved the potential tragedy they were facing, but understanding passed between Leena and Magnus all the same.

“Have you ever thought of finding someone else?” Leena asked after a sober moment. “Remarrying, perhaps?”

“Never,” said Magnus, emphatic, but then a thought hit him belatedly. “Oh, sorry, you weren’t—that wasn’t—you weren’t, like, feeling me out or something with that question, were you?”

“No,” laughed Leena. “That’s not my scene at all.”

“Not into men?”

“Quite the contrary; I had a husband. Kids too, in fact. But I had the love of a lifetime while I was living. I don’t feel the need for romance now.”

“Ah,” said Magnus. “So you became a reaper, but he didn’t?”

“That’s right,” said Leena. “When our times came, he was ready to rest, but I found I wasn’t. It was as simple as that, really. Our love wasn’t diminished just because we chose different paths in death.”

“I can respect that,” said Magnus. “But for me, I can’t imagine choosing any path that parted me from Julia.”

“And I can respect that,” Leena said, smiling at him warmly.

“Guess we should hop to it, then,” said Magnus, suddenly remembering his former eagerness.

“Go on, then, open up a portal like we’ve practiced.”

“Sure,” said Magnus, jumping up, and he summoned the Flaming Poisoning Raging Sword of Doom to his readied fist, which was _freaking awesome,_ and he still wasn’t over how rad it was that it was soul-bound now. Leena looked at the oversized, overpowered, and overwrought weapon and rolled her eyes, as she had done every time she had seen it so far. There was no accounting for taste, Magnus supposed. With a flourish, he slashed right through the planar barriers, his mind firmly centered on their destination.

Leena stepped through first, a mop of brown hair and a feathered robe that disappeared, seemingly into thin air. Magnus followed, barely containing his excitement, because despite not wanting to become a reaper for real when he died, he really could not emphasize enough how awesome it was to play the part for a little while. Even if he was just reaping some benign souls, he was finally going into the field. He’d never felt so cool.

________________________________________

Tiki torches flared, and notes from a steel guitar floated by on the breeze over the sound of the waves. On a stool crowded up to Chesney’s open-air bar, Merle chugged a margarita. Tourist season was over in Bottlenose Cove, so the bar and the beach were sparsely populated, but that didn’t stop the locals who lived that Island Boy lifestyle. Merle was a beach dwarf, and a little cold weather wasn’t going to keep him away from the beach.

Besides, he lived next door.

Tonight, the margarita just wasn’t cutting it. He wanted the hard stuff, but he knew that was a road he didn’t need to go down. His mood had been despondent since his powers had gone on the fritz again, and he felt utterly useless. He felt left out.

His buddies, his good ol’ adventuring partners, were off playing reapers without him, and he was bummed. Sure, they all had their own lives now, and Tres Horny Boys hadn’t teamed up in a while, but he missed those days sometimes.

Merle had feigned indifference when he decided to stay out of their plans, but it had been a lie. He knew it, and they probably all knew it too. But he hadn’t had a choice. Without a reliable source of magic, he was nothing but a liability.

“Well lookie there, it’s Earl Merle,” said a too-loud voice beside him. “Always a pleasure to see you, sir, always a pleasure.”

Merle turned to see one of the locals plop his elbows on the bar, a grizzled human man who Merle suspected was neither as old as he acted nor looked. “Hey there, Jimothy, good to see you,” said Merle, lying through his teeth. “How have you been?” He winced as soon as the question left his mouth, because that was always the wrong question to ask Jimothy.

“Oh, can’t complain, can’t complain,” Jimothy drawled. “Knee’s been actin’ up, but that’s life, am I right? Old fantasy football injury, you know. I was team captain back in my school days—have I ever told you?”

“You’ve mentioned it once or twice,” Merle said. _Every damn time we’ve ever talked,_ he thought.

“Ah, well, the ol’ memory ain’t what it used to be, but that’s just life, am I right?”

“Sure, sure,” said Merle absently.

“Nope, can’t complain. Got a bit of a crick in my spine, must have picked up somethin’ too heavy. Eyesight’s goin’ too, but that’s just called gettin’ old. But I can’t complain.”

As always, Jimothy was doing a fine job of complaining, despite his insistence otherwise. Merle just sipped his margarita in silence.

“You seen your buddy Lord Sterling lately?” Jimothy asked.

“Not since the Midsummer Solstice festival.”

“Well, you tell him next time you see him to look into them new tariff laws, will you? Buddy o’ mine down in Neverwinter says they’re bad business. Says they’re tariffin’ him out of house ‘n’ home. I told him that’s just life, there’s always gonna be tariffs or some such to get you down just when you think you’re gettin’ ahead, but he said to tell you to tell Sterling to cool it with them damn tariffs.”

Merle sat up straight, a course of action suddenly manifesting in his mind. “Jim, old pal, you’ve just given me a great idea,” he said, hopping down from the barstool. “See you around.”

“Well, now, that’s what I call service!” Jimothy said. “I told my buddy Earl Merle had our backs. You take care of them tariff laws, you hear?”

Merle just waved idly as he walked with purpose toward his estate to pack a bag. He had no intention of addressing any tariff laws, but he did plan to speak to Sterling.

Merle might not have been able to help police the afterlife, and he might not have possessed the scientific knowledge to help Davenport and Lucas, but he could help in his own way. Why did he and his friends always try to handle every apocalyptic crisis on their own? Screw secrecy.

Sterling could bring a team of top scientists in to assist in the investigation of the bond energy lead. He had the authority and the influence (and hell, the tax dollars) to halt any state-funded research projects and shift all that manpower and resources over to this more important task.

Having friends in high places could be handy indeed. Merle grinned to himself. No, he wasn’t useless after all.

________________________________________

“Look, guys, I’m as anxious to keep up the training as you are, but Carey and I are mortal,” said Killian, closing up the practice planar rift she had just opened (which was rad as hell and would never get old). “We can’t skip meals.”

“We’d better feed her,” Carey added, sheathing her knife. “She gets cranky when she’s hungry.”

Killian didn’t argue with that, because it was true, and she didn’t care who knew it as long as it got her closer to getting food in her belly. She dematerialized the halberd she had chosen as her weapon, because she wasn’t too keen on walking around with two large weapons strapped to her back, and she wasn’t about to give up her crossbow.

“Let’s break for lunch, then,” said Dayne.

“I’m afraid we don’t have a cafeteria or any restaurants around here,” Delph apologized. “It’s not exactly a priority for us.”

“Yeah, I didn’t spot any Fantasy IHOP signs when we were getting the tour,” laughed Killian.

“Do you two just want to run home for lunch, or what?” asked Dayne.

“Let’s go out,” suggested Carey. “You guys might not need to eat, but I saw Kravitz eat an entire pie in one sitting once, so I know you _can._ We can chat.”

“An _entire pie?”_ Delph repeated, horrified.

“Taako bakes a mean rhubarb,” Killian shrugged. “It happens.”

“Only to people with orc appetites, babe,” said Carey. “And I’m pretty sure Kravitz was sick as a dog afterward. I think he was a little out of practice with portion control. They hadn’t been together that long yet.”

“I am _so_ saving that information for later use,” said Delph, grinning wickedly.

“You’re welcome,” Carey grinned back.

They ended up at a panini place in Rockport, and how freaking cool was it that they could pick any restaurant in any town at which to eat?

Tom Bodett set down their plates, and Killian tore into her double-decker sandwich with relish. Reaper training was hungry work, it turned out. Any training was hungry work, for that matter.

Carey and Delph chatted away, bonding over rogue things, Killian assumed. As the halfling reaper (Lee-something-or-other, wasn’t it?) had predicted, the four of them had hit it off.

Dayne was the stoic, quiet sort, and they watched Delph with a fond look in their eyes. Delph laughed suddenly at something Carey said, and a small smile crept across Dayne’s face. _Disgustingly adorable,_ Killian thought with a private chuckle.

“So does he do that thing where he sneaks up on you accidentally? Like all of a sudden he appears out of thin air and you jump a mile?” Killian asked.

“All the time,” Dayne said. “Does she do that thing where you’re looking for something you could have sworn you put in your pocket or whatever, and then she just hands it to you?”

“Oh my god, yes, I hate that!” Killian exclaimed, but she was grinning. “I get so mad, but she just cackles.”

“It’s the worst,” Dayne agreed, but they met each other’s eyes, companionable understanding passing between them. Dayne seemed more relaxed now, as though the ice had finally been broken by solidarity. Killian decided right then that they were friends, and once this was all over, she and Carey would have to get together with Delph and Dayne from time to time, if they were willing.

But as they both tucked back into their food, Killian noticed a tension that still lingered in Dayne’s shoulders, a worry that hadn’t quite been chased from their eyes, and she realized that this was personal for them too. Kravitz wasn’t the only reaper at risk. Every one of them faced unknowns with this illness of the gods, ending, perhaps, in obliteration.

Killian wished, with a sudden surge of fervor, that she could do more to help, but she wasn’t an alien being from another planar system with a hundred years of experience in dealing with world-ending threats. She wasn’t a scientist, nor did she even have magic at her disposal.

But if what she was doing could make even the slightest bit of difference, then she would throw her everything into doing her job as a deputy reaper well. Killian wasn’t about to lose her friends, both old and new, without putting up a fight.

________________________________________

Lucas stared at the readout on one of his instruments, dumbfounded. Ever since the discovery that had prompted him to contact Taako, he’d been scouring the planar barriers for more rifts with more bond energy signatures. He hadn’t found even a thread of bond energy since.

Until now.

The readout indicated high levels of energy concentrated in one area, which told him two things. One, someone had been attempting (and had likely succeeded at) planar travel; and two, the vessel had passed through this rift recently—as in, within the last few hours.

This energy signature hadn’t been there on the last sweep, Lucas was certain. Someone had traversed the planar barrier in a bond-powered vessel right under Lucas’s nose.

Lucas was tempted to be peeved that someone had their hands on this tech before he did—well, other than the Birds. The Starblaster didn’t count. If another apocalypse wasn’t looming, Lucas would throw his everything into beating this mystery person at their own game.

He was still a little peeved, apocalypse notwithstanding.

Lucas checked another instrument, a sort of planar sextant, and he consulted the map he’d spent the last few years developing. This new point of interest was indeed in the same general location as the first rift—not the exact spot, but close. The angle of entry or exit mattered more with interplanar travel anyway.

Hoping for a trail of energy to follow, Lucas checked the surrounding area for bond particles. He picked up on some, but he was only able to track the trail for a short distance before it dissipated. That was disappointing, but not surprising. Once the vessel entered Faerûn’s material plane, the amount of energy required to power the engine would be significantly lower.

He’d been able to identify a trajectory, though, however small, which was more than he’d had to go on last time.

Lucas spent the next half-hour making careful notes of the locations and logging all the readouts from his instruments. He should bring Davenport in next, he supposed, but he was reluctant to do so.

Davenport had had a head start on all this stuff, having come from a world where interplanar travel and bond energy were common knowledge, or at least, common enough to have entire institutes and government-funded research programs dedicated to their studies. In Faerûn, this was new, this was cutting edge, this was _monumental,_ and Lucas wanted to be at its forefront.

Plus, Lucas still had a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that Lucretia’s idiot butler was actually a renowned wizard and scientist and captain and savior-of-the-world. Working with him felt _weird,_ especially after their past interactions, and Lucas didn’t like it.

A knock sounded on Lucas’s door, and his secretary popped his head in without waiting for an answer. “Someone to see you.”

“Not now. Can’t you see I’m busy? I’m doing _important things.”_

“Too important for _Lord Artemis Sterling?”_

“In that case, send him in,” Lucas amended quickly, choosing to ignore his secretary’s sarcastic tone, at least for now. He didn’t know what the deal was with secretaries. He’d gone through about six of them by now, and they all started out fine, but they all ended up giving him grief.

Lord Sterling strode into the lab a minute later, and Lucas scrambled to his feet to greet him with a small bow.

“What an unexpected pleasure!” Lucas simpered. “How may I assist your lordship?”

Sterling rolled his eyes. “We can assist each other, I think. I just had a visit from my good friend Merle Highchurch, and he told me of the situation our world is facing right now.”

“Yes, it’s just terrible!” Lucas said. He hadn’t expected to be discussing this with Lord Sterling, but he could roll with it. “I was the one that discovered our first possible lead, see, and I’ve just made another discovery that could really be a game changer—”

“Yes, yes,” waved Sterling impatiently. “I know, your genius knows no bounds. I’ve heard all about it.”

“Thank you,” said Lucas. That _had_ been a compliment, right?

“Anyway, Merle told me what was going on, and he told me about the research you’re conducting, and he persuaded me that you could use some assistance. Consequently, I’ve halted several research programs, and I’ve ordered a team of top scientists to be at your disposal. I want you to use their expertise to the fullest and solve this mystery as soon as possible.”

Lucas’s stomach dropped. That prospect was even less appealing than working with Davenport. He didn’t want to share his research, not his own private, personal, scientific-breakthrough-level research. He didn’t want to share the credit, either. “Actually, I work better alone,” he attempted, “but thank you very much for the offer, I’m sure.”

“Merle said you would say that. He told me if you did, to pass along this message: ‘Huff my shorts, Lucas.’”

_“Excuse me?”_

“Merle’s words, not mine,” said Sterling with a faint smile. “But for my part, I must tell you that it was not an offer, but an order. You _will_ work with the scientists I’ve assigned you. Besides, you’ll also have access to all of the funding that was previously at their disposal, and if you need more, you may come to me and request it.”

“In that case, I accept,” said Lucas.

________________________________________

In a ghetto on the outskirts of Neverwinter, not far from Chaos Stadium, Carey and Dayne waited in the shadows of a narrow alley for their target.

More accurately, they waited for their target to die.

Carey tried not to think about that too hard.

She hadn’t truly comprehended this part of the job until now, she realized. It was one thing to _know_ that reapers usher the souls of the newly dead to the Astral Plane, but it was quite another to be responsible for that. She was glad she wasn’t alone.

They lurked on principle rather than by necessity, because they were in the Ethereal Plane, so no one on the street could see them. Plus, in the Ethereal Plane, everything looked shadowy, or at least it did to Carey. She wasn’t sure if Dayne saw it differently. Did reapers have some sort of special sight?

A child stumbled into view, a bedraggled, starved creature in rags, and Carey stifled a cry. Forgetting, in her shock, that she occupied a different plane, she’d have rushed over to help the child—a boy, she thought, but it was difficult to tell—if Dayne hadn’t held an arm in front of her to stop her movement.

“Wait,” they said simply.

“It’s a _kid,”_ Carey protested, not understanding. Couldn’t Dayne see that this child was in need of help? Why wouldn’t they let her help him? The boy needed a healer, fast.

Dayne just looked at Carey, a sympathetic sadness in their eyes that made realization dawn on Carey by degrees.

“That’s—he’s—he’s our _target?”_ she stammered at last.

Dayne nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. I didn’t even think about it.”

“Fuck that. We can’t just do nothing!” Carey protested, heart racing. She knew it was pointless, but she couldn’t help the sudden surge of anger and grief.

“There’s nothing we can do, other than our jobs,” Dayne said, but their voice was gentle despite the firm words. “It will only be a minute now.”

Carey wanted to scream, and she wanted to run, and she wanted to scoop the poor dying boy into her arms and sprint with him through a portal to the nearest clinic, but she knew it was useless. She knew she had to do her job.

They’d talked about this, but it hadn’t been real until now.

Carey steeled herself and schooled her face into a mask, and she nodded at Dayne to acknowledge her understanding. They nodded back, satisfied, and they dropped their arm. Steadily, Carey walked toward the boy.

Dayne had been right; it only took a minute, and the death-rattle shook the boy’s thin chest, and it stilled. He sat up, a wavering form occupying the same space as the body, and he blinked in confusion and fear, seeing Carey at last.

“It’s okay,” she soothed, desperately trying to suppress the quiver in her voice. She noticed that the boy’s soul was not so thin as his body, not so dirty. “I’ve come to take you to a nicer place. You won’t ever be hungry or sad again.”

“Will my mama be there?” the boy asked, his eyes saucer-wide but hopeful.

Carey faltered then, not knowing what to say, but fortunately Dayne stepped up beside them. “She will indeed. Let’s go see her, okay?”

Carey held out a hand, and the boy took it. Dayne sliced a rift with their scythe, and Carey led the boy through.

They delivered the boy’s soul to the Astral Plane. The moment Carey and Dayne were alone again, the dam burst, and Carey sobbed.

Dayne stood awkwardly for a moment, but then they opened their arms, hesitant. “Would you like—” they started, but Carey launched herself into their arms before they could finish the question and cried it out on their shoulder. Dayne patted her on the back, comforting.

“Sorry,” Carey mumbled at last. “This part . . . I knew, but I didn’t _know,_ you know? I . . . how do you—I mean, does it ever get any easier?”

“Yes,” said Dayne softly, “and no. You get used to it, but that almost makes it worse, somehow.”

Carey sniffled. “It’s an awful feeling. The waiting, wanting to help but not being able to, not being _allowed—_ I don’t think I could do this for long. How do you and the others manage it without losing yourselves?”

“I can’t speak for anyone else,” Dayne said. “But for me, I just have to tell myself that I can be a soothing presence and make their transition easier. They’d die just the same whether I was waiting for them or not, and if someone has to collect their soul, it might as well be me.”

“I don’t think I appreciated reapers properly until now.”

“We’re just doing our jobs,” Dayne said, but they couldn’t suppress a smile at the compliment.

“This is embarrassing,” Carey chuckled humorlessly, pulling away and scrubbing at her eyes. “I swear I can do this. I was just caught off guard. I’ll be better prepared next time.”

“There’s no need for embarrassment. Every one of us has been in your position. I’d have been more concerned if you didn’t react.”

“True,” Carey conceded. “That’s fair.”

Dayne squeezed her shoulder before letting go and summoning their scythe.

“Carey, you’re going to do just fine.”

________________________________________

“Come in,” Lucretia called, leaning back in her desk chair and scrubbing a hand over her eyes, weary from hours of nonstop research.

The door opened to reveal Brad Bradson from HR, orderly as ever, hair pulled into a neat, low ponytail. He ducked slightly as he entered to avoid banging his forehead on the frame, and he shut the door behind him.

“What can I do for you, Brad?” Lucretia asked.

Glancing down at his ever-present clipboard, Brad tapped a pen against the paper where he had undoubtedly made a checklist. “A couple things,” he said. “I need your signature on a worker’s comp claim. Remember that errant Grease spell in the cafeteria last week?”

“Of course I remember,” Lucretia sighed. The responsible party had been a new employee, and Lucretia had delivered the reprimand and the week’s suspension without pay herself.

“Well, Leon was walking through at the time and apparently broke his ankle, and now he’s filed a claim.”

“Show me where to sign.”

Brad pulled a couple sheets from the back of his clipboard and handed them to her, pointing with his pen at the lines requiring her signature. She jotted it off and returned the papers to him.

“Second,” said Brad, “what’s the situation with Carey and Killian? They went on leave abruptly and didn’t fill out any forms. Should I process their absence as time off? Are they using vacation days, or what?”

“Paid leave,” said Lucretia. “They’re doing something important with my permission, and I don’t want their pay interrupted. They shouldn’t have to use vacation time when they’re working.”

“Got it,” said Brad, making note of Lucretia’s instruction on his clipboard.

“Is there anything else?” Lucretia asked.

“Yes, one other thing,” said Brad. He paused a moment, brow furrowed in thought, and then he pulled up a chair and sat down across from Lucretia. “What’s going on, Madam Director? Everyone’s starting to get anxious, and it’s becoming a nightmare to fend off the questions in my department and keep motivation levels high. What’s our official statement?”

“Tell them the truth. There’s sickness in the pantheon. But tell them the Birds have it under control.”

“Do they?” asked Brad quietly.

“I have faith that they will.”

Brad caught her gaze and held it. “You’re worried,” he stated.

“Yes,” Lucretia admitted. “But I don’t want my employees to be. Not yet, at any rate.”

“You know, if you need to take leave too, we can manage things without you for a little while if need be. Let us help you help yourself.”

Lucretia suppressed a chuckle at the textbook phrasing, but she knew he meant well. “I appreciate that. I’ll let you know.”

Brad stood up again, smoothing the wrinkles out of his crisply pressed pants and tucking his clipboard under one arm. “I’ll do my best to put a positive spin on things. Don’t hesitate to reach out if there’s anything else I can do.”

“I will, Brad, thank you.”

Brad nodded and left.

Lucretia sat unmoving, lost in thought. Brad had a point. She was desperate to be helping her friends in some way, desperate to do her part in saving the world once again.

But she wasn’t welcome to help directly. Had circumstances been different, she might have pressed the matter, but once she learned the nature of the situation and realized how personally it affected Taako, she had decided to stay away and not add to his stress.

But perhaps she could help in some other way. According to the reports of Killian and Carey, Davenport had remained behind to work with Lucas. She might not have their scientific expertise, but she had been poring over manuscripts over the last few days, and she could offer her assistance. Taako wouldn’t even have to know. It was better than feeling helpless and isolated, in any case.

With sudden, decisive intent, she stood and strode out of her office. She popped her head in Brad’s office on her way out to tell him she was taking that leave after all, and then she marched herself toward the hangar bay to tell Avi to ready a cannon aimed for Neverwinter.

________________________________________

Barry swiveled his chair around, his work spread out over two tables. He jotted down some notes in nearly illegible shorthand, the hallmark of a mind that moves too fast for fingers to keep pace.

To the unfamiliar eye, chaos reigned over Barry’s workspace, but he had his methods. The test tubes might not be neatly lined up, but they were clustered in logical groups and clearly labeled, and the pile of open books—dog-eared, spines bent—were cross-referenced on a separate notepad. The detritus of long days of research without pause littered the empty spaces—several food wrappers here, a couple abandoned coffee mugs there, a growing mountain of crumpled papers beside the garbage can where Barry’s aim had failed.

He’d taken samples from Oghma that morning and from Hestia, Brigantia, and that ridiculous Party God fellow the day before—what was his name again? Oh well, it didn’t really matter; the point was that none of those four had fallen ill yet. Barry had traveled to them in their own domains because no one wanted to risk exposure.

It had the potential to be a breakthrough on several levels, now that he could compare the specimens he had collected earlier from the Raven Queen and Istus to those of uninfected gods. Plus, he could test his theory on the culprit being an airborne pathogen, now that he could set up some cultures.

That had been his first small victory, although it was still uncertain. By comparing the atmospheric samples of this world’s transitive planes to his old data of the godless planar system, he’d been able to identify and isolate a foreign body present in both systems, a bacterium heretofore unknown. It was, in fact, one of the very few commonalities between the samples, beyond the endemic elemental composition of the planes.

It was progress, but he was still far from any answers, nonetheless any cures or treatments. Not only was Barry researching in what was an entirely new field of study, but he was also in a race against time. Vaccines took months at best to develop, even for a whole team of scientists, and that had been in his home world where science had progressed further than it had in Faerûn.

Barry was just one person. A damn good scientist, if he did say so himself, but still. Neither epidemiology nor immunology was his area of expertise, nor was any sort of biology, although he had a decent knowledge of the fields.

If he could only outsource some of this work, they might have a chance for success before time ran out.

He didn’t want to think about what would happen if time ran out.

They had to have a chance. He could see the infection in the samples from Istus and the Queen, but it ran rampant, and he wasn’t sure how to combat it. No extant sort of antiviral medicine would be effective against something like this. Nothing like that had been developed for deities. There had been no need, before now.

But Barry could send some samples off to Lucas and Davenport. They could gather a team to work around the clock testing every possibility for something that might stave off the infection. If Barry could just positively identify any sort of immune response in his samples, he could also outsource that data in hopes of finding a way to boost immune response.

The best bet for winning this thing was to find some short-term way to slow the effects, which would then buy time for developing an actual cure or vaccine.

Barry tossed his pen aside and twirled back around. He needed to get those cultures set up as soon as possible.

Once that was done, he set them carefully aside and selected one of the test tubes holding the new specimens. Brigantia, he noted, checking the label. With an eyedropper, he extracted some blood (or whatever passed for blood for a deity) from the tubes, and then he squeezed out a glistening drop onto a fresh slide. Once readied, he delicately placed the slide under the lens of his microscope and peered into the instrument.

As he studied the slide, something caught his eye—something familiar that he almost missed, because he was used to seeing it in much greater numbers.

It was the virus, and what he was seeing were antigens, antigens with antibodies latched on. They didn’t look quite like he’d expect them to in a mortal, but he wasn’t dealing with mortals. No, these were antigens; he was sure of it. Brigantia had been exposed somehow, but so far, her system was fighting off the infection.

Barry jumped up with a whoop, scattering some papers he’d forgotten were in his lap, but he didn’t care. He nearly knocked his glasses off his face in his enthusiasm. He pumped both fists in turn in the air and danced an inelegant little jig.

It wasn’t a cure, it wasn’t a vaccine, and it wasn’t even a treatment—not yet. But it was the first step in creating all of the above, the first glimpse of a chance to fight this illness and save, well, everything.

Barry felt a wash of relief sweep him—premature, perhaps; the clock was still ticking, and he was far from an answer. But it felt like hope.

With an excited grin, Barry sat back down, adjusted his glasses, and went back to work.

________________________________________

Brandishing a feather-duster, Davenport marched into the common area of the Starblaster to rid the ship of the evidence of disuse. He’d been tinkering with the bond engine all morning, making sure everything was in tip-top shape and ready to fly at a moment’s notice.

The Starblaster was functional, but a lot more work was needed to make the ship livable. Ideally, no one would actually need to live on board, but if this situation ended up requiring planar travel, it wasn’t likely to be a whimsical day-trip.

The pantries would need to be stocked, and Davenport supposed he’d better check if the appliances all still worked. He’d also need to prep a couple of the bunks, just in case—make sure they had clean sheets and that sort of thing.

He could hire somebody to do the cleaning for him, but he was reluctant to let anyone on board his ship, nonetheless poke into all the nooks and crannies of what had been his home for a century. The Starblaster had been his home and his crew’s home—that unlikely group of people who had been at first crew only, then friends, then family.

The ship still felt like home in a way that nowhere else did, in a way that nowhere else ever would, probably.

Still, it felt strange and empty to be here alone. If Davenport closed his eyes, he could almost hear the sounds of daily life.

_Merle’s loud snoring wafted around him in the common area. Every afternoon (when nothing out of the ordinary was going on), Merle napped in his favorite easy chair. He acted surprised every time he woke up, always insisting that the nap had been impromptu and accidental, but day after day, it was the same. You could set your watch by Merle’s afternoon nap._

_“What’s for dinner?” Magnus bellowed, bursting into the kitchen, followed by, “Ouch!” and a clatter, probably from a thrown spoon._

_“Get the fuck out of my kitchen or cook it yourself!” yelled Taako—a common but never implemented threat. “You’re damn lucky to eat anything I put in front of you. The IPRE could have had you all eating MREs, but they hired Lup ‘n’ me instead, so count your damn blessings and shut up! And reach that pot down for me—nope, that’s not—it’s the big—yeah, that’s the one.”_

_Listening harder, Davenport could hear the low murmur of intense conversation from down the hall, peppered by the occasional chuckle. Barry and Lup were holed up together, ostensibly working. And if they weren’t—well, Davenport couldn’t begrudge them whatever happiness they could eke out of this situation._

_Soft footsteps drew closer at his left, and he heard Lucretia asking for him. “Cap’nport. Captain Davenport.”_

Davenport. Davenport.

“Davenport?”

He shook himself and opened his eyes to see Lucretia actually standing in front of him, but she wasn’t the Lucretia from his memories. This was the woman—older, harder, _changed—_ that had taken so much from him.

“It’s Captain, thank you,” he said, more harshly than he’d intended, but she’d startled him out of his reverie.

“Of course, Captain. Sorry,” she said, the permanent crease in her brow that had never been there on the Starblaster deepening.

“It’s fine,” he said. “What brings you here?”

“I want to help,” she said, looking at him unflinchingly, determined.

Their exchanges had been cordial but lacking warmth since Davenport had regained himself. He still found it more difficult to look her in the eyes nowadays, knowing the humiliating dynamic that had existed between them. He’d cheerfully hopped to and fro at her command like a manservant; he’d been paraded in front of her entire organization like a novelty. Understanding only marginally soothed his wounded pride.

But Davenport had never been one to back down from a challenge, so he met Lucretia’s gaze all the more steadily. He didn’t abide anyone questioning his authority, and he’d had a century during which to exercise it. No matter how Lucretia styled herself these days, ‘Madam Director,’ or whatever title she was using now, Davenport didn’t care. He’d _earned_ his captaincy with the IPRE, and he’d silently remind Lucretia of that at every opportunity.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Davenport said. “You know Taako doesn’t want you involved.”

“Fuck what Taako wants,” Lucretia burst out. “I mean, I understand that this is difficult for him, and I don’t want to make things harder. Even if he never speaks to me again, he’s still my family, and I don’t want him to lose anyone ever again if I can help it. But this world is my home too, and I won’t just sit back and watch it die.”

Davenport studied her for a minute. He couldn’t fault her reasoning.

“Go get a rag. You can wash the windows,” he declared at last.

Lucretia’s face fell, but she did her best to conceal it.

Davenport hadn’t meant the task as an insult; he had been about to do it himself, after all. “You can reach better than I can,” he explained, softening the instruction.

Lucretia smiled. “Yes, Captain,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do let me know what you thought! As always, you can follow me on tumblr as terene.
> 
> Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I do not science. I did my best with Barry's section, but I can't promise it's not off-base on some point or another. We are, of course, dealing with a fantasy setting and supernatural beings, but I still tried to keep the terminology more or less accurate. If I got anything egregiously wrong, please let me know and I'll do what I can to fix it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup has plans. Taako and Kravitz have an unexpected early morning. The twins don disguises.
> 
> CW: Passing mention of a young Lup transitioning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been approximately two million years since the last update, and I'm so sincerely sorry for that. Life happens sometimes. But even though I had to set aside writing for a little while, I won't abandon this story, and I'm back to working on it. It's a little slow-going while I'm trying to regain my stride, but I'm getting there.
> 
> This chapter is a tiny bit on the short side, because this little side story wasn't intended originally to be split into two chapters. But I realized I'd already passed my minimum chapter word count, so in the interest of A, not having a super long chapter, and B, just getting the darn thing out there, I'm posting.
> 
> Thank you to anyone who has stuck around for your patience and support!

“Morning, sunshines!” Lup’s voice boomed from the other side of the bedroom door, startling Taako awake. “Up and fuckin’ at ‘em!”

Kravitz groaned into his pillow and burrowed deeper, pulling the blanket over his head.

“What the fuck, Lup?” Taako protested, groggy and confused. “It’s not even light out, Jesus Christ. Why the hell are you up so early?” Lup was more of a morning person than Taako, but only marginally. Both liked to luxuriate in sleep, whether needed or not.

“Barry stayed in his lab working, and I can’t sleep when he’s not there—”

“Gross-a-roony.”

“—so I just meditated for a few hours. I want to get an early start, so get your ass up! Don’t make me come in there.”

“I wouldn’t advise it unless you want an eyeful,” said Taako, despite the fact that he and Kravitz were both perfectly decent—not that that had stopped Lup in the past.

Apparently having given up further sleep as a lost cause, Kravitz sat up, squinting and scowling. Taako was both sympathetic and charmed.

“Ew, now who’s gross?” Lup countered. “Anyway, hurry up and get dressed, and then you can cook me breakfast before we head out.”

“Like hell!” Taako yelled. Kravitz winced, so Taako lowered his volume (but not his indignation). “You broke into my house and woke me up at an obscene hour. Cook your own damn breakfast. In fact, make enough for four. Angus is still staying with us.”

“One, I didn’t break in. You gave me a key when you moved in, dingus. Two, Angus isn’t here. His door’s open, and he’s not in his room.”

“Huh,” said Taako. Angus’s little excursions at odd hours over the last week or so hadn’t escaped Taako’s notice, but now wasn’t the time to muse on them. “He must have had some early morning business, I guess. Well, breakfast for three then. Chop-chop!”

Lup huffed, but then Taako heard her footsteps leading away from the door and down the stairs. “If you’re not down in ten, I’m coming after you!” she yelled as she retreated, her voice getting quieter with distance.

 _“Chop-chop?”_ Kravitz echoed, narrowing his eyes at Taako. “Was—was that a cooking pun?”

“Natch,” Taako lied. It hadn’t occurred to him as he’d said it, but he’d always take credit for a pun.

“It’s too early in the morning for puns.”

“Says the king of bad puns. You know you loved it.”

“I love _you,”_ said Kravitz—a concession, although he was still pretending disapproval. “But I didn’t marry you for your sense of humor.”

“Fuck off, I’m hilarious,” said Taako, but he grinned. Sobering suddenly, he changed the subject. “Hey, you feeling okay this morning? You look tired.”

“I _am_ tired. But that seems to be the extent of it so far, so I’ll count that as a win.”

“Good,” said Taako without conviction. Kravitz’s increasing fatigue was enough cause for worry, and worry seemed to be Taako’s constant state lately. Over the last couple weeks, Kravitz had had some good days and some bad, although even on the bad ones he generally rallied as the day progressed.

Kravitz shouldn’t _need_ sleep, but lately, it seemed, he did.

“You’d better hurry,” Kravitz said, “or Lup is going to come drag you out of bed.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Taako waved his hand dismissively. Of all people, he could handle Lup, but he climbed out of bed all the same.

 

“Buckle up, bro, we’re on a hunt!” Lup announced the moment they stepped through the rift she’d sliced.

They stood on a cobbled road surrounded by farmland, Taako noticed, and a large city rose above the trees about a half-mile down the road to the southeast. Taako could just make out the blue haze of the sea on the horizon beyond, the early morning sun adorning the line of the water with a pinkish, glowing fringe.

Taako raised his eyebrows at Lup. She’d been vague about her plans for them over breakfast, and once they had finished, she’d whisked Taako away without explanation. He certainly wasn’t opposed to the idea of a hunt; he was getting weary of training and collecting benign souls, and he wanted some excitement. But he’d been under the impression bounty-hunting was off limits for the present. “Really? Krav said that wasn’t on the table for a while.”

“Yeah, fuck that. No offense, Taako, but your hubby’s a stick in the mud when it comes to work. We’re gonna have some fun.”

“My husband’s status vis-à-vis sticks and mud notwithstanding,” said Taako dryly, “tell me honestly: Are we supposed to be here?”

Lup gave him an incredulous look. “Since when do you care whether or not you’re supposed to do something? Don’t tell me you’re going all lawful on me. I don’t think I could deal.”

Taako snorted—yeah, that was never going to happen. “It has nothing to do with being lawful and everything to do with not wanting to get on a goddess’s shit list. A goddess, I might add, who is Kravitz’s boss, and yours and Barry’s, and mine too, temporarily.”

“Touché,” Lup shrugged. “Still surprised you’re worried. You’re usually more of an ask-forgiveness-not-permission sort of person.”

“The whole sort of course of my afterlife kind of depends on her good favor,” Taako pointed out.

“Okay, you’ve made your point. Rest easy, Goody Two-shoes: Mommy said we can go outside and play.”

“In that case, hell yeah, I’m down,” said Taako, ignoring Lup’s jab. “Thought there was a moratorium on bounty hunting right now though.”

“Not anymore for those of us with upgraded scythes. But with all of us on training duty, we’ll be hard-pressed to catch up on the backlog of open bounties while you trainees are with us.”

“Yeah, guess so. What’s on the agenda? Also where are we?”

“That, my dear brother, is the illustrious city of Waterdeep, where our business has led us. Should be fun; has all the earmarks of a real caper. Just like the old days.”

Taako liked the new days much better, he realized, and the thought sent a renewed pang of worry through him. Still, he was always up to make some mischief with his sister, so he pushed the feeling down. “Tell me more.”

 

Waterdeep was a booming hub of activity and trade, and until the last few years, the city had been the pinnacle of progress and modernity. While Neverwinter was still much smaller, being at the forefront of technological advancements had done much to increase the city’s standing and influence. Several of the Birds had settled there or nearby, after all.

Taako had been in Waterdeep a couple times before, actually—he’d played some venue or other with Sizzle It Up, and he’d returned a couple years ago while on a press tour. All cities started to run together when you were touring, so he hadn’t recognized it immediately, although he supposed he should have. Few cities he’d visited rivaled Waterdeep’s size.

Waterdeep was the sort of city Taako would love to explore, what with its diverse population and its rich trade business. All sorts of gems were sure to be hidden throughout its wards—curiosity shops run by grizzled, enigmatic merchants; hole-in-the-wall restaurants serving surprisingly delicious local cuisine; boisterous taverns abuzz with the various languages of far-traveled patrons; and bazaars chock-full of exotic imports. He hadn’t had the time to do much exploration during his previous visits. Nor, did it seem, would he have opportunity to do so today.

“The problem with being a celebrity,” Taako complained, “is that you can’t go anywhere under the radar.”

Taako and Lup wound their way down what would have been a busy street, if they hadn’t been occupying an adjacent plane. As it was, the morning hubbub of the market square they passed was removed from them, its vibrancy dulled, color leeched out. It was eerie—a strange sort of living ghost town.

“Ah, the heroes’ burden,” Lup lamented magniloquently.

“And the TV personality’s,” said Taako.

“Yes, darling, I know: You were famous first,” Lup teased.

Taako jumped out of the way of a mule-drawn cart that careered through the crowd before he remembered it didn’t matter; the cart would have passed right through him. He yelled obscenities after it all the same, not caring that the reckless driver couldn’t hear them.

“Natch,” Taako continued as though uninterrupted. “Still, it’s a pain in the ass sometimes.”

Reaching a cross-street, Lup held out an arm to halt their progress. She glanced around at the signs, then turned down the right-hand street and continued their march.

“Don’t lie to me and tell me you don’t love it when you’re out on the town and get bombarded by fans wanting autographs,” said Lup. “You eat that shit up.”

“Sometimes,” Taako conceded, scrambling to keep up with Lup’s quick strides. She’d always been more athletic than him, but he was realizing just how out of shape the domestic life had made him. “But sometimes I just want to have a nice quiet date night with my man in peace.”

“Like you don’t love showing him off.”

“Sure, but not the point—”

“I mean, I don’t blame you. If Barry looked like that, I’d want to show him off too.”

“I’m totally telling Barry you said that.”

Lup shrugged, but her mouth was twitching in humor. “He knows he’s never going to make the cover of Fantasy GQ. But he also knows I love him, which is far more important, really.”

“Flawless logic,” Taako chuckled. “I’m sure that’s a comfort to him in his homeliness.”

“I mean, he’s not _that_ bad. Kinda cute, in his own nerdy sort of way.”

“Sure. Maybe not cover material, but he might be worth a featurette. He’s famous too, which counts for a lot,” Taako reasoned. “I’ll mention it to the editors when I submit Kravitz’s name for the cover.”

“Okay, now you’re just being a jerk,” Lup declared, jabbing Taako with a bony elbow, but her voice held no resentment.

Taako cackled, but then he dropped the bantering tone and said, “All jokes aside, you picked a good one, Lup.”

“I know,” she said, smiling warmly at Taako. “So did you.”

Taako grinned back, his mood lightened and his heart warmed. It was nice to spend time with Lup, just the two of them. He might not miss the old days, but he did miss this.

A dozen or so blocks and several turns later, Lup drew to a stop again. “Okay, I think this is the place,” she said. 

Taako stopped beside her, and he observed the establishment in front of them, trying to discern its nature. Earlier, Lup had refused to tell Taako anything other than that they would be investigating several recent deaths that had reeked of necromantic energy and that they’d need to do some undercover work. Taako was down for anything that required a disguise or sounded even remotely heist-like, but he was suspicious of Lup withholding details.

Their course had led them just beyond the narrow city streets and alleys, and the air stirred with a breeze that could now meander freely, unblocked by storied wood and stone. Still in the Ethereal Plane, Taako couldn’t feel the breeze, but he could see it rustling the leaves of a stately avenue of trees that flanked a footpath leading up a gentle slope. A sprawling, pillared structure sat atop a grassy bluff amid more trees, but like the ones along the path, these had been deliberately placed and maintained. Manicured hedges wound around the property, and within them stood what would undoubtedly be well-kept flowering gardens during warmer seasons. Taako imagined the air tasted of salt, because the sea sparkled just beyond the bluff.

The place was beautiful and peaceful, but Taako couldn’t pinpoint its purpose. It wasn’t ornate enough to be a temple, and it was too unassuming to be a mansion. Perhaps it was some sort of conservatory?

Before Taako could question Lup once more, she said, “So this place looks pretty baller. I almost wish you were retiring here for real so I could come and visit once in a while.”

Retiring? Taako blinked at Lup in bemusement. “Come again?”

 

Twenty minutes later, Taako gathered his robes and his dignity to sink down into a plush chair, making a show of gripping Lup’s arm to steady himself, and he made sure to dig his nails in extra hard. Lup didn’t react; her expression remained serene and utterly in-character as she gracefully took a seat beside him. Taako propped his cane against his knee and glowered.

He didn’t actually mind playing the part of an aging man moving into a retirement home—in fact, it was a role he could have some real fun with. Over the next few hours, he was already planning to say exactly what was on his mind and tell off a great number of people under the pretense of encroaching senility.

No, Taako was just miffed at Lup for assigning him the role without discussion, especially when she’d used the flimsy excuse that he was the transmutation wizard, when she could literally change her form at will thanks to being a reaper. “But what if RQ’s power fails again?” she’d asked, yadda yadda. Whatever.

Across from the pair who looked to the world like father and daughter, an offensively cheerful human man sat behind a desk, his fingers steepled atop the polished wood. He was pushing middle-aged, hair just beginning to gray at the edges of a receding hairline that he was doing his best to conceal with some creative combing. “Welcome, both of you, to Final Quest!” he greeted, and then he pointed a jaunty finger in the air and added in a singsong voice, “When wandering feet at last seek rest, they’ll find it here at Final Quest!”

This place had a fucking jingle. How _gauche,_ how positively _macabre._ Taako was delighted.

“Why, thank you, sonny,” Taako croaked, “What a catchy little tune. How’d that go again?”

That at least earned him a subtle glare from Lup, but she let the man trill out the motto once more. She didn’t give Taako a chance to interject again, though, and she immediately spoke when the last note ended. “How nice,” she drawled, affecting a southern accent. She’d been working alongside Kravitz too long, Taako thought, amused; but at least her technique was marginally more convincing. “My father and I are so very grateful for your hospitality, and my goodness, but we’re just so glad to be here at this gorgeous place of yours! I’m Lulu Dungaree, and this is my father, Emmett Ravenson.”

 _“Colonel_ Ravenson, mind you,” Taako added, stroking his beard and puffing up his chest. “Fought in the Relic Wars, you know.”

“Ah, yes of course,” the man said. “My older brother fought, but I was a little too young myself. So nice to make your acquaintance, Colonel, Ma’am.” He stood up and reached over the desk to shake each of their hands in turn. “My name is Ronjamin, and I’m the director here at Final Quest.”

“Who in tarnation would name their son Ronjamin?” Taako questioned. He’d already decided to disable his filter for the day, and he planned to enjoy it. Old people could get away with anything.

“Now, now, Papa, behave!” Lup chided. She put the stress on the second syllable of ‘Papa,’ and Taako kind of wanted to kick her. He settled for thumping her shin with his cane.

Ronjamin was unperturbed and answered without missing a beat. “My mother, Ronda, and my father, Donjamin,” he said proudly.

“I see,” said Taako, deadpan. Jokes at someone’s expense were decidedly less fun when he couldn’t even get a rise out of his victim, so he didn’t pursue the tease.

“Now, you two, I suppose you’d like a tour of the grounds first? You’re welcome to spend the day here and experience the many features our facility has to offer. You can mingle with the other residents, dine in our gourmet cafeteria, play some Fantasy Bocce Ball, or relax in our in-house spa! We don’t have any natural hot springs, unfortunately, but we employ a wizard to keep the baths nice and toasty.”

“That sounds just dandy,” said Lup. “Papa’s a little apprehensive about movin’ here, I think, so it will be good for him to get a feel for things.”

“I’m not apprehensive,” Taako protested, “I just think she’s tryin’ to get rid of me. Usher along my end, as it were, by shovin’ me into an old folks’ home so I’ll waste away and she can get my money. Just like her mother, rest her soul—a beauty, but a gold digger. Always prospectin’, her mother was, even after I asked her to put her pickaxe down and marry me. But that turned out for the best, since she struck a motherlode not two weeks after our weddin’. That’s how we made our fortune.”

Taako leaned back in his chair, immensely pleased with himself.

Lup’s mask was dangerously close to failing (from humor or annoyance, or maybe a little bit of both), but she rallied. “Excuse my father,” she apologized. “He’s always joshin’. Now, Papa, you mustn’t say such things. Why, you know I worry myself sick over you. I think about you every day, rattlin’ around in that big old house of yours all alone. You could go to bed and Death could come for you where you lie, and no one would know.”

Taako choked, and as Lup made a show of patting him on the back through a coughing fit, he saw her faint smirk from the corner of his eye. Oh, they were playing dirty now.

Ronjamin waited patiently, a look of well-practiced but shallow sympathy on his face. “Death comes for us all,” he said philosophically, and Taako almost choked again.

 _Nah, Death’s painfully monogamous,_ Taako thought with private amusement. _Not that I’m complaining._

“But here at Final Quest, we do our best to make sure our residents live their sunset years to the fullest,” Ronjamin finished brightly, commercial-like. “Your timing is fortunate, actually. Usually, there’s a waiting list to secure a space in our facility, but we’ve had several recent d—well, we’ve had several sudden vacancies, you understand.”

“Fortunate indeed,” said Taako, monotone. He was disliking the director more by the second.

“Well, shall we?” Lup suggested, standing. The other two followed suit (Taako made a production of relying on his cane to assist him), and Ronjamin ushered them out of the room to start the tour.

 

An hour or so later, their tour was completed, and Ronjamin left Lup and Taako in the gardens with brochures outlining Final Quest’s accommodations and the accompanying price points. A quick glance told Taako the place was, unsurprisingly, far from cheap.

“‘Ravenson’?” Taako scoffed the moment the director was out of earshot. “Really?”

Lup shrugged. “Your hubby doesn’t have a surname for you to borrow, but I figure that’s what it would be if he did.”

“A little on the nose, but fair, Miss Dungaree.”

 _“Mrs._ Dungaree, née Ravenson, thank you very much. We’re a little old-fashioned where we come from, right, Papa?” she asked, accent syrupy.

“Shockingly, I would be one hundred percent A-OK with you never calling me that ever again.”

“Just be glad I didn’t call you Daddy.”

Taako gagged. “I swear to Jeffandrew that I will fucking blow chunks all over your shoes if you ever call me that.”

“Noted. It definitely had a bad mouthfeel,” Lup agreed, scrunching up her face.

“But seriously, what are we, schoolkids scribbling the names of our crushes?”

“I never actually did that. Did you?”

“No way,” Taako said, lying through his teeth. If Lup wasn’t going to come clean, then neither was he. But maybe she really never had. Their adolescence hadn’t been the easiest, and she’d had the harder time, still transitioning and lacking the confidence that had oozed from her pores ever since. Maybe she’d been past the scribbling stage by the time she allowed herself to take interest in boys.

“Listen,” he said, changing the subject, “don’t we need to get down to business? This is a job, after all. Also, are we in agreement that Ronnie-boy is guilty as fuck?”

“I certainly wouldn’t bet against it, but that might just be wishful thinking. What a douche. But we don’t have anything solid yet, so we’ll have to do some digging. I felt some faint necromantic energy, but it was impossible to pinpoint its origin.”

“Let’s go mingle, then. I think we should investigate this wizard dude too. I could go for a dip in the hot tub anyway.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lup agreed. “Also, for the record, I’m having a hard time taking anything you’re saying seriously. Your beard bobs up and down with every word.”

Taako’s hand immediately went to his face to scratch at the bushy, bristling gray beard covering his jaw and chin. “It’s itchy as hell. Super fucking glad we elves don’t grow facial hair. How do Magnus and Merle and everyone stand this shit?”

“Kravitz has facial hair too,” Lup pointed out. She checked the map on the brochure and headed for the spa, holding out an arm to Taako.

Taako hooked his arm into Lup’s and hobbled along, cane tapping along beside him. “Like a little goatee or some shit. Doesn’t count. He’s not walking around with a shrubbery on his face like some people.”

“So not a beard fan, huh?”

“It’s about moderation, darling. Krav’s is ideal—just the right amount to make him look extra hot and manly, but not enough to tickle or scratch much when we kiss or he goes d—”

“Gonna stop you right there,” Lup held up a hand. “Conversation over. I’m really not into hearing about my boss going down on my brother.”

Point for Taako. He had a few decades of occupying the room next to Lup and Barry’s to make up for, after all, because apparently they’d never heard of a damn silencing spell.

“Aw, fuck,” Lup cursed, stopping suddenly and pulling a face.

Taako peered at her curiously, not sure whether or not he should be concerned.

“I just realized something,” Lup said. “Unless you’re planning on getting into that hot tub fully clothed, I’m gonna have to see your gross old wrinkly body with my own two eyes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that you enjoyed and that the chapter didn't suffer too much from having been written in pieces across a hiatus.
> 
> Regarding the next chapter, I hope to get back on a regular posting schedule soon, but since I'm not quite yet back to writing at my former pace, I'm not going to promise next Monday. But I'll do my best, and if it's a little late, it won't be by much.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angus reveals a gap in his education. A quartet of ghosts attempt scare tactics. Kravitz breaks protocol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, a chapter on a weird day! I wanted to get this one posted yesterday, but something came up. But I didn't want you guys to have to wait another week when you've already waited so long, so here it is!
> 
> I'm so sorry this chapter is so late again. I was very close to having it done, but I was prepping for my last con of the year and trying to have my artist alley stock built up, and I was just swamped and thus had to set writing aside again. I was also trying to finish my Kravitz cosplay to debut, so perhaps I can be forgiven! I'll share pics on my tumblr as soon as I receive them back from the photographer. That was my last deadline of that variety for the year, so hopefully I'll have a little more flexibility now to work writing back into my schedule.
> 
> But anyway, enjoy! I really love this chapter and hope you will too. <3

The door to Kravitz’s office burst open, admitting a frazzled and winded Angus. He scurried inside and shut the door behind him.

Kravitz leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, and he affected a serious expression. “You’re late,” he said, aiming for gruff.

He must have succeeded, because Angus paled. “I know, sir, I’m so sorry, sir!” he babbled. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”

“Angus, relax. You’re exactly three minutes late. No one cares about three minutes, least of all me. I was just teasing.”

“Oh,” said Angus with relief, and he slumped into the plush sofa pillows to catch his breath.

Kravitz rose to go join Angus on the couch, and once seated, he elbowed the boy. “Another rendezvous with your sweetheart?” he joked.

“Not mine, but somebody’s,” said Angus. “You know those visitor logs I, uh, acquired? Well, I thought I had a lead because this one lady’s name had shown up an awful lot during the time the Starblaster was there. I looked her up, and she’s a research fellow at the Institute of Arcane Science, so I thought, bingo! But it just turns out she had been dating the Ministry’s custodian. They have two kids now.” Angus chuckled wryly and gave a shrug. “So that was a bust.”

“Bummer,” said Kravitz with both sympathy and disappointment. “Did any other names stand out, or was she the only one?”

“There were a couple of others, but she was by far the most frequent visitor. I’ll keep digging. There has to be something. If a person is involved as we suspect, there’s no way they haven’t left a single breadcrumb. No one is that good.”

“Not when Angus McDonald is on their trail,” smiled Kravitz warmly. “If anyone can find them, you can.”

“I hope so. But in the meantime, we have other work to do. What’s on the agenda for today?”

“A bounty, if you think you’re ready for it.”

Angus’s eyes brightened with tempered excitement. “I think so. Do you think I am?”

“I wouldn’t have considered it if I didn’t. Plus, a little birdie told me that Lup took Taako after a bounty today, and we can’t let them have all the fun, now can we?”

 

Sand crunched beneath the feet of reaper and protégé as they stepped through the rift and onto an expanse of deserted beach. Warm salt air enveloped them in sharp contrast to the seasonable cold of Neverwinter they’d left behind that morning. Angus immediately glanced down at his warm woolen coat and made a face.

“You might want to lose the coat. Just toss it back in,” Kravitz said, motioning toward the rift that he had not yet closed. The weather made little difference to Kravitz’s comfort, but there was no need for Angus to sweat. It wasn’t like he was wearing a uniform or something. (He barely looked the part, in fact, with his tweed trousers and his mossy green sweater-vest, but Kravitz hadn’t commented. The deputies had more important things to learn than an appreciation for the Reaper Aesthetic™.)

Angus shucked the garment off with obvious relief and threw it back into Kravitz’s office, and then Kravitz sealed the portal.

The waves lapped against the shore, and somewhere overhead, a gull cried its plaintive mew, but not even the faintest sound of civilization reached Kravitz’s ears. The absence itself resounded loudly, strange to someone used to city living and the hubbub of a goddess’s court.

“Where are we?” asked Angus.

“In the southern regions of Faerûn, about a day’s walk from the city of Murann,” said Kravitz. “The climate is milder here, but still, it’s warmer than I expected.”

“The weather has been running amuck everywhere too.”

“True. Let’s start walking, and I’ll tell you about our bounty.”

They ambled along the shore with the ocean to their right, heading south toward a rockier terrain of cliffs, crags, natural arches, and sea caves. Kravitz expected they would find their bounty within those caves, if reports were true.

Some weeks before, a ship had gone down in a storm, driven far off its course by strong winds and currents. Ultimately, none of the small fishing vessel’s crew had survived, although a few had first reached the shore, battered and bruised but breathing. Unfortunately, they took shelter in the caves, most likely hoping to start a fire, but their ordeal had addled them, and they hadn’t accounted for the storm surge. It came upon them suddenly, trapping them in the cave with the force of the waves, and they had drowned.

It was a sad tale of misfortune, but such tragedies were the purview of the Raven Queen and her emissaries. What made this incident unusual and put a price on the heads of the hapless sailors was their unexpected resistance. The reaper who had first gone to collect them had been met with hostility, and at least one of the sailors was a magic user and, aided by surprise, had managed to overwhelm the reaper. The case had been escalated to a bounty right before chaos had disrupted operations, and it had sat untouched in the backlog until now.

“Be alert for an ambush,” said Kravitz. “They know it’s only a matter of time until we come for them again, and they’ll likely be on the lookout. We may be able to convince them to come without a fight, but if it comes to that, we should easily best them. Have your wand at the ready and leave the hand-to-hand to me, if possible.”

“Sounds good, sir,” Angus replied.

“Again with the ‘sir.’ It’s really not necessary.”

“I know, it just—it feels weird to just call you Kravitz.”

“Well, what would you like to call me?”

“I . . .” Angus bit his lip, hesitant. He furrowed his brow and ducked his head, and Kravitz felt like there was something there, something that was going unsaid, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. “I don’t know.”

“Stick a pin in that,” Kravitz offered. “We’ll come back to it.” They were nearing the sea cliffs now, but a little distance remained to cover, so Kravitz decided to pursue the subject. Angus was prone to politeness, sure, but he’d lived with Kravitz and Taako for a while. Kravitz was puzzled why that little degree of formality still lingered, especially since Angus had mostly dropped it with Taako, barring the occasional slip of habit. “Why does it feel weird to call me by my name?”

“Well, you’re very important? And powerful,” Angus stuttered, obviously off-balance with this topic. “Plus, you’re kind of my boss right now, so there’s that.”

“That’s a new arrangement and therefore irrelevant,” declared Kravitz with a grin. He nudged Angus’s shoulder with his own as they walked side by side. “You know plenty of powerful people, so why should I be any different?”

“You are, though,” insisted Angus. “I mean, you hold the highest position in a goddess’s court. You’re practically a demigod yourself.”

“Not _quite_ accurate, but flattering,” smiled Kravitz. “But look, Angus. You know me. I may have an important job, and I may be undead, but I’m also still just a person, and kind of a hot mess of one sometimes. You’ve seen me get wine-drunk and cry over trash television, and you’ve seen me give myself a stomach ache because I have exactly zero self-control when it comes to dessert. You’ve seen me trip over my own two feet and bang my head on the same damn shelf in the pantry at least a dozen times. You’ve seen me lose my literal shoes to my fiend of a sister-in-law because I suck at Scrabble. And if memory serves, you were party to my brain shutting down on the job when this pretty elf showed up and started yelling colorful threats at me but all I could think for an embarrassing length of time was how very gay I was.”

Angus had been trying to maintain a straight face through Kravitz’s little speech, but at that last statement, a guffaw burst out of him despite his best efforts. “I mean, when you put it that way, you are kind of a disaster.”

“Okay, now you’re just being a smartass,” said Kravitz, but he didn’t stop smiling.

“I was taught by the best.”

 

The sea had carved out several caves along this stretch of shore, so Kravitz and Angus had to search each one for their quarry as they came to it. The first, little more than a hollow, yielded nothing. A short distance past, they came across a second, deeper cave, its rocky entrance jutting out into the water, requiring them to wade through knee-high waves. Angus hesitated, glancing nervously at the blue expanse that stretched out to meet the horizon.

“Don’t want to get your feet wet?” Kravitz teased.

“No, it’s not that,” said Angus quickly, and a look of embarrassment crossed his face. “I—I can’t swim.”

Kravitz stopped in his tracks, totally blindsided. “You can’t?”

“I never had anyone to teach me,” Angus shrugged.

Oh. Kravitz should have guessed—after all, he’d done a little investigating of his own soon after first meeting Angus, wondering how someone so young could be, to all appearances, alone in the world. Later, Angus himself had disclosed some of his history.

Taako, and Kravitz by proxy, had assumed for a time that Angus had a father at the very least, based on Angus’s own statements when they first met. Taako had had no reason to think the boy had lied.

But Angus had. He was smart—smart enough to know that no matter how intelligent he was, he had still been a ten-year-old boy traveling alone on a train. A loud mention in public of a doting, protective father might have been sufficient to dissuade someone from targeting him in favor of an easier victim, but even if not, it might have made the difference in him being kept alive and unharmed in hope of a ransom. Talk of a dying, senile grandfather wouldn’t have had quite the same effect.

In truth, Angus’s father had abandoned him and his mother when Angus was still an infant, and in her grief, his mother had blamed the child for driving away the father. She’d been distant in Angus’s early years, relying on nurses and tutors to raise her son in her stead. As soon as Angus was reasonably old enough, his mother had sent him off to a boarding school. A year or so later, she’d disappeared, ostensibly run off with a new man.

Angus’s grandfather had always been kind to him, and it was he who had paid the boy’s tuition and kept him in food and fine clothes. But his health had been in decline since Angus was a baby, and soon his mind had failed him too, exacerbated by his daughter’s disappearance.

Kravitz didn’t know if Angus had ever put his own detective skills to use in trying to find either of his parents, but Kravitz did know that if he looked now, it would do him no good. Records showed that both had by now checked into the Astral Plane. But unless Angus asked, Kravitz would keep that information to himself; such was the burden of knowledge that came with his position.

In any case, no, of course Angus wouldn’t have had anyone to teach him to swim. He’d missed a lot of childhood activities, most likely. An idea came to Kravitz then, a determination to amend this one gap in Angus’s life experience. He didn’t say anything yet in case he couldn’t follow through, but he had a plan.

“No need to be nervous,” Kravitz assured. “The water isn’t deep here, and the tide is ebbing. Plus, I’m here, I can swim, and you know what else?” Grinning, he leaned in like he was sharing a secret. “I don’t actually need to breathe.”

“That’s true,” chuckled Angus, looking somewhat more relaxed. “I guess you could rescue me even if I got swept away or something, huh?”

“Absolutely. But the waves are calm here today, see? There should be no problem. Hang onto me if you need to.”

Angus trudged through the surf beside Kravitz, only grabbing his arm once to steady himself when a current tested his balance. They reached the interior of the sea cave without incident. Soon they stepped on solid ground once again, soggy from the knees down. Their shoes squeaked. The two caught each other’s eye and exchanged disgusted looks from the unpleasant feeling, but then Angus brandished his wand and cast a quick Prestidigitation to dry them off.

The sandy floor of the grotto sloped upward, dry but for the occasional puddle thanks to the receding tide. The inside was surprisingly roomy, with a high craggy ceiling and several nooks and passages winding away from the main chamber, the largest of which likely connected to another exit. A few steps further in revealed a deep pool in the center of a hollow, its waters a dark, clear blue-green. Algae grew on its rim.

Suddenly a whistling echoed through the grotto, and to Kravitz’s trained ears it sounded distinctly like a voice and not like the wind. In fact, it sounded exactly like the noise someone would make if they were attempting to add spooky ambience to a story told to wide-eyed children around a campfire.

“Wooooo,” came the voice.

“WoooOOOooo,” came several others in chorus.

“Are you havin’ a bloody laugh with me?” said Kravitz loudly.

“No!” came the indignant response of a solitary voice, followed by sharp whispers—undoubtedly the speaker’s companions chastising them for ruining the act. No other answer came, but the spooky wails also ceased.

Angus snickered.

“Well now, that’s just about the worst ghost impression I’ve ever heard,” Kravitz continued, “and considerin’ you lot are literally ghosts, that’s really quite pathetic, innit?”

“And that’s the worst accent I’ve ever heard!” one of them yelled. “Just where are you supposed to be from?”

Kravitz flushed. “I’m an emissary from the Raven Queen’s court,” he said in his normal voice, desperately trying not to lose the upper hand. “The accent is just a fun little thing I do to keep things interesting, but never mind that. We’ve got business with you, so why don’t you show yourselves, and we’ll have a little chat about your whole sort of, uh, _fate.”_

Kravitz could see the spirits where they crouched within a nook of the cave, hovering on the edge of the Ethereal Plane, but he knew Angus couldn’t. After a moment’s deliberation, the ghosts materialized and stepped forward into full view. Angus startled almost imperceptibly.

The shades of three men—two human and one dragonborn—and one dwarven woman stood before them in ragged seafaring garb. The waves reflected mottled sunlight into the mouth of the grotto, and it flickered across the ghastly, semi-opaque forms, giving the four dead sailors an almost luminescent appearance. 

The dragonborn man spoke in a deep, guttural voice. “What is this, bring-your-kid-to-work day?” he asked, motioning to Angus. “I mean, not that there’s any familial resemblance.”

“I’m not a kid,” Angus protested.

At exactly the same moment, Kravitz, already flustered from the previous mocking of his work accent and caught off-guard by the question, said one of the worst things he’d ever uttered, and the second it left his mouth he regretted it. “He’s not my kid.”

Angus froze. A stranger might not have seen the hurt in his body language, but it was plain as day to Kravitz. He felt like a monster, especially after the conversation they’d had earlier, where Kravitz had felt like they were on the brink of acknowledging something they’d both been too uncertain to name before.

It certainly wasn’t what Kravitz had meant to say, but whatever he had meant to say didn’t matter. Whether he’d intended to echo Angus’s sentiment that he wasn’t a child at all, or whether he’d meant to say something like _there’s no familial resemblance because he’s not my biological kid but no less my kid—_ none of that made any difference. He’d said what he’d said, and the damage was done.

He’d have to fix this, but now wasn’t the moment. His heart in his throat, he spoke again. “He’s also an emissary of the Raven Queen, and he’s extremely capable. Now, I’m tired of wasting time with small talk.” Kravitz summoned his book, and he turned to the page containing the sailors’ entries. He listed their names, making eye contact with each of them in turn. “You are all fugitives of the Astral Plane, and you’re in violation of the laws of the Raven Queen. My associate and I are charged with upholding those laws, and as such we have authority to bring you in, whether willingly or by force. We’d prefer the former, and you should too. Come with us without resistance, and your stays in the Eternal Stockade will be much shorter.”

The dragonborn must have outranked the others, because he continued to speak for the group. “Listen, pal. Those are some fancy words, but they don’t mean much to us other than to reinforce our decision to stay right where we are. We have unfinished business, we do. Now, the way I see it, there’s two of you and four of us, and if the last one of your outfit was anything to go by, the extra person just means it will take a few more minutes for us to run you off. So why don’t you just save us all the trouble and go back to where you came from and leave us be.”

So much for diplomacy. A fight seemed inevitable. “I’m afraid you’ve made a _grave_ miscalculation,” Kravitz said, pausing for emphasis on the pun, but the ghosts just stared blankly at him. “Just a little death joke there,” he explained, unperturbed—unsurprisingly, his targets rarely appreciated his humor. “You have to make your own fun in this line of work. The point is, you managed to catch my subordinate off guard before, but you don’t have that advantage with me. And unfortunately for you, I’m not just _a_ reaper—I’m _The_ Reaper, you might say. Of the Grim persuasion, you understand.” And with that, Kravitz shifted into skeletal form and brandished his scythe, his eyes two points of menacing red light in the shadows.

Angus followed suit by producing his scythe as well, but Kravitz noticed his wand was also tucked into his palm. Such a grip would be dicey if he actually tried to wield the scythe, but Kravitz doubted he would. At this juncture, he was better off relying on his magic if he needed to join the fray. Kravitz approved.

The ghosts seemed suitably impressed and intimidated by Kravitz’s revelation, but they’d committed to their stance and showed no signs of backing down. They drew their weapons and planted their incorporeal feet apart on the rocky ground, readying for battle.

One of the humans stood back from the others, and he held no obvious weapon but grasped some small object in his fist. Kravitz immediately singled him out as the spellcaster of the group. A quick glance to the side showed Angus had eyes locked on the man; not much slipped past the young detective.

The dragonborn went on the offensive first, charging forward with a two-handed axe held aloft, and Kravitz stepped up to meet him. He easily parried the axe blow with his scythe and swept around, and he used the momentum to fluidly chain into a counterattack. The dragonborn narrowly stepped aside; his coattail caught in Kravitz’s swing, and a corner of spectral fabric fluttered toward the ground, dissolving before it landed.

Kravitz too had to dodge now, because the dwarven woman lunged at him from the side with a trident. He managed to knock her back with the butt of his scythe; she staggered but kept her footing.

Kravitz crossed blades once again with the dragonborn man, and he assessed the rest of the skirmish as he went through the familiar paces of combat.

The spellcaster was thoroughly engaged with Angus (and woefully outmatched). From the look of things, Angus had immobilized the other human man, probably with a quick-thinking Hold Person—their interactions thus far had illustrated that wisdom was not this man’s strong suit. He squirmed comically in place, waving a rapier uselessly above his head.

_Good,_ Kravitz thought, satisfied that Angus had things under control. He threw off the dragonborn with some effort; the man was built like a brick wall and easily had a hundred pounds on Kravitz even when he wasn’t just bones. Fortunately, their physical forms were only part of the equation in this fight.

The dwarven woman bandied with Kravitz again, and she was surprisingly nimble on her feet for having the short legs typical of her race. She jabbed her trident toward him but never landed a hit, but neither was he able to strike her.

Truth be told, Kravitz felt more sluggish than usual, and he hoped this fight would end swiftly. At least his weapon wasn’t at risk of disappearing. He still felt his connection to his Queen, still had her power flowing through him, but it was waning. He’d known it these past days but hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it, but he could no longer ignore it. If breath had been a concern to him, he’d have been out of it already.

If his opponents had had any disciplined combat training, Kravitz might have been in trouble. They were scrappy and spry with that expected seafaring brawn, and clearly they were no strangers to fights, but they lacked finesse. Their experience likely consisted of bar brawls and defending their vessel and cargo from mercenaries.

The dragonborn charged Kravitz again, and this time, Kravitz was able to land a blow. His blade struck the man’s left arm, scales deflecting steel enough to keep the wound shallow, but the dragonborn recoiled in pain.

Despite the score in his favor, Kravitz couldn’t take a moment to rest, because the dwarven woman immediately stepped into the opening. Where her dragonborn companion relied on brute force, she employed quick footwork. She wielded her trident like an extension of her arm, but her strikes tended downward. Her usual targets probably swam at her feet instead of looming above her. It was her undoing. She thrust her trident too low and missed her target, which left her wide open for Kravitz to bring down his scythe upon her. The blade sliced through her wavering form, and she dissipated like smoke, her soul transported directly to the Astral Plane.

One down.

The dragonborn lunged, shouting in anger, and he swung wildly, but temerity did his aim no favors, and Kravitz easily sidestepped.

A scream drew both opponents’ attention to the other occupants of the cave. Angus had made his way toward the still-immobilized man while trading spells with his fellow caster, and he was holding his scythe poised to strike. Kravitz saw him pause for a fraction of a second, hesitant, but the spellcaster leapt toward him, and then Angus swept the blade downward.

Halfway there.

The dragonborn redirected his rage toward Angus and made a move to rush him, but he forgot to watch his back. Kravitz struck him down before he could take a second step. Like hell was Kravitz going to let him so much as raise a weapon against Angus.

Now only one sailor remained, and he halted in his tracks and looked around frantically. His already ghastly face paled even further in terror as he realized he was now alone.

“I surrender!” the spellcaster shouted. He dropped to his knees and held his focus out in his open palm, offering it in token of his yielding. As Kravitz stepped closer, he saw that the object was a shining silver compass on a fine chain. “You’ve defeated my shipmates and bested me, and I’ll go with you willingly now, I swear. Please don’t use those on me,” he pleaded, and he glanced between Angus’s and Kravitz’s scythes in fear.

Kravitz took the compass from the man’s shaking hands, and he was surprised to find that it was corporeal and not just an echo of the man’s accoutrements in life. He flipped it over curiously, and he saw a blue-green gemstone set into the back—chalcedony, perhaps, its color a perfect match for the choppy waters of an open sea. An inscription surrounded the stone: “For our dear son on the occasion of his first voyage, so that he may always find his way back home.”

“I accept your surrender,” Kravitz said. “Please stand.” The man complied, relief in his bearing. Kravitz shifted back into his flesh form so that he could meet the man’s eyes without further terrifying him. He held up the compass and asked softly, “Is there someone you’d like to have this?”

The man gaped at him, looking terribly young and sad. “You’d do that?”

“I don’t make a habit of it,” Kravitz said. “Can’t, you understand, even if I wanted to. But I’ll make an exception this time.”

“My parents,” the man said quickly. “They keep vineyards south of Baldur’s Gate. Jonas Sommerfeld is my father.”

Ah, yes, Kravitz remembered this young man’s name now from reading it earlier: Jode Sommerfeld. “I’ll make sure they receive it,” Kravitz promised.

Abruptly, Jode’s eyes welled with tears. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Kravitz nodded solemnly, and then he opened a rift. Angus placed a steadying hand on Jode’s back and ushered him through, firm but friendly, and Jode went. He’d still be in for a stay in the Stockade—rules were rules, after all—but his compliance now would surely shorten his sentence. After all, even in death, he’d just been following the orders of his superior.

Kravitz wondered what unfinished business the four sailors had had.

 

With Jode safely delivered to his destination, and with the others’ arrivals confirmed, the mission was completed. Kravitz returned to his office with Angus in tow. He removed the compass from his pocket and placed it on his desk to remind himself to deliver it.

“That was a kind thing for you to do,” said Angus.

“It was breaking protocol,” Kravitz admitted, but then he grinned. “Don’t tell on me.”

“Mum’s the word.” Angus tapped the side of his nose in a conspiratorial gesture.

“You did well today,” Kravitz said. “You made me proud.”

A huge smile spread across Angus’s face and lit it up like sunshine; Kravitz could have sworn the boy’s freckles even glowed. They still needed to have a talk, but maybe that made up at least a little for Kravitz’s verbal misstep earlier.

A little, maybe, but that didn’t satisfy Kravitz, who really didn’t want that guilt hanging over his head, especially not now when, as much as he hated to even think it, time could be limited. Exhaustion from the earlier melee lingered in his bones, he noted with dread.

He remembered his earlier thought, that tentative plan he’d penciled into his mind, and he made a decision right then.

Plenty more bounties needed pursuing, but screw it. Kravitz could put in a few extra hours that night to make up for it or something. He didn’t really expect Taako to be home anyway, considering the job Lup had chosen for them. No, spending some leisure time with Angus was worth it.

“Wait right here,” Kravitz said. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.” Before Angus could so much as raise an eyebrow, Kravitz disappeared through the planes.

 

When Kravitz returned a quarter of an hour later, arms laden with a hastily prepared basket, he immediately tossed a wad of fabric at Angus, who scrambled to catch it. “Put those on,” Kravitz instructed.

“I don’t understand,” Angus said. “Why would I need swimming trunks for a job?” He squinted in confusion at the shorts in question as he held them aloft. (They were the trunks that Taako had purchased for Kravitz a couple years ago, deliberately and gleefully chosen because they were far too tight and would, according to Taako, show off Kravitz’s assets. Kravitz had refused to wear them again, but he suspected they’d fit the slimmer Angus fairly well.)

Kravitz chuckled as he pulled his better-fitting pair from the basket. “You don’t. Put them on and don’t argue. Here, I’ll turn around. I’m going to put mine on too. We’re playing hooky, and I’m teaching you to swim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm not going to promise a date for the next chapter. I don't have much written on the next one yet, to be honest. But I do have a fair amount on the one after, so hopefully those two will post in fairly quick succession. But my schedule is a little freer now, as I mentioned earlier, so I'll do my best to have the next one out with less of a delay than the last couple. Thanks for hanging in there! Your kind comments on the last one were everything <3


End file.
